The End of Affirmative Action
In 1965 President Johnson issued Executive Order 11246, prohibiting discrimination in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. This came on the heels of President Kennedy’s Executive Order 10925, which ordered contractors to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex or national origin." Both Executive Orders played a large part in the adoption of affirmative action practices by colleges and universities across the nation.
Over 50 years later on June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court voted that colleges and universities can no longer take race into consideration as a specific basis for granting admission. For students who stem from under-represented communities, the repeal of affirmative action is a critical blow against racial equality. In an educational system that advantages people with power–often in the form of money, networks, and legacy–versus groups without, the loss of affirmative action can feel like adding weight to an already tilted balance. Yet, to many others, the recent Supreme Court decision is a step toward racial equality. Whether you agree with this logic or not, many families and students feel as though an educational system without affirmative action is a step closer to our American ideals; that race, color, or creed has no determination to our meritocracy. What can we make of these two drastically differing interpretations?
No matter where we sit on this line, it's clear that America, as we know it today, is not the meritocracy we want it to be. We still live in a society that has not yet amended its past wrongs nor knows how to sustain equal rights into the future. But remember, society does not exist. Rather, it is a symbol of people, who work in collaboration to create something neither one person nor one group of people could make alone. So, how can we expect to achieve a fairer society without hearing the stories of our classmates across the room, block, city, and country? What do you know of life and its conditions in the American projects? What do you know of life as the minority or majority? What do you know of the people that you call bigoted? If you know little, then it is you that is the bigot.
In Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings she says, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you”. The people are in agony and you can help by listening. Within those stories are the answers, the common ground that unites us. The people have the answers. They always do.
Today we challenge you to take a small step towards easing the agony of the untold story. Read something from an author of a completely different background as yourself. Begin to understand what it means to live in the world while wearing their shoes.
