‘Supreme Court-issued death-knell’ to diversity: editorial board
The editorial board of The Harvard Crimson student newspaper recently lamented the Supreme Court’s overturning of affirmative action.
“We despair at the Court’s striking of race-conscious admissions,” began the June 30 editorial, titled “Harvard’s Fight to Keep Diversity Alive is Just Beginning.”
“We now find ourselves in a state of utter post-affirmative action loss,” it continued. “A loss for our University, a loss for progress, and a loss for our nation resound in the aftermath of this decision.”
Aside from agreement on a single point, that “no racial group is a monolith,” the decision is “reeking of a repulsive ‘let-them-eat-cake obliviousness’ to systemic racism, per Associate Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson [sic] ’92,” Crimson editor Emily Dial wrote on behalf of the editorial board.
“Given the Supreme Court’s conservative posse, race-conscious admissions policies were living on borrowed time,” Dial continued. “In many regards, the decision was inevitable — almost preordained.”
In response, Harvard should “radically reimagine” its means of “cultivating diversity.”
To start, the editorial suggests admissions should end legacy admits and weigh socioeconomic status more heavily.
However, “considering socioeconomic status instead of race won’t achieve the same racially diverse outcomes that affirmative action once helped promote because racial disparities exist beyond class,” Dial wrote.
The decision is “depressing”; “six Supreme Court justices metaphorically ziptied Harvard’s hands behind its back, tightly curtailing its capacity to provide the enriching experience of a College education to those who might benefit from it most.”
In response, Harvard must create a new template for admissions in higher education “to help diversity in higher education outlive its Supreme Court-issued death-knell,” Dial concluded.
The editorial “solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board,” according to a note appended below the article.
“It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.”
MORE: New federal complaint targets Harvard legacy admissions, argues they violate federal law
IMAGE: Harvard Crimson/Instagram
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