Tag Archives: affirmative action

Roderick Graham: The End of Affirmative Action?

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With the right-leaning US Supreme Court poised to eliminate affirmative action in higher education around the country — this seemed like an opportune moment to take stock of how effective affirmative action has been since President Kennedy instituted it in 1961. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to Roderick Graham, a sociology professor at Old Dominion University to examine who will actually be affected by the seemingly inevitable change, what the right wing might do once affirmative action is gone, and how this decision may affect other selection preferences in college admissions.Read the show transcript

Rod Graham: The Fight Over Affirmative Action

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Back in 2016 the US Supreme Court established that the University of Texas could continue to consider race as a factor in admissions, in order to ensure a diverse student body. At that time Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg declared, “I don’t expect that we’re going to see another affirmative action case, at least in education.” But Justice Ginsburg hadn’t anticipated the current Court and its appetite for re-examining established law. Later this year the Court will hear challenges to affirmative action at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. Given the right-leaning makeup of this Court, the decision may well deliver a major blow to affirmative action at this country’s institutions of higher learning. This week on Sea Change Radio, we discuss the state of affirmative action with Prof. Rod Graham, a sociologist at Old Dominion University. We look at the recent history of racial preference in educational policies, talk about why it would be a mistake to abandon affirmative action, and ponder the impact that such a decision could have on legacy preference in school admissions.Read the show transcript