Affirmative action in America is gone, but the change in data so far doesn’t show clear racial balancing. Unlike Oxford, the American admissions system requires personal essays, extracurricular activities, and a range of demographic qualifiers. College progressives may be offsetting explicit racial quotas with a new emphasis on these categories.
The left’s answer has long been in favour of affirmative action as an obstacle-remover for future generations – adjustments today make them unnecessary tomorrow. But their university-level proposals are now irrelevant and unconstitutional. The solution, for now, must be upriver.
Every year, the US government releases the ‘national report card’, which tracks literacy rates, tested in third grade (ages 8-9), across different demographics. In 2023, Black students had a literacy rate of 18% and Latinos had 21%, compared to White rates of 42% and Asian rates of 58%.
Aggressive and efficient resourcing of struggling racial minorities at the elementary-school level is a must given these numbers, and is now the only consequential option left to affirmative action proponents. Progressives should devote the bulk of their educational funding to reach marginalised groups before adulthood is even close. Conservatives will be satisfied that university-level qualifications are not bent to fit ethnic rationing.
And whether or not one believes elementary school is the right place to prioritise, it doesn’t matter. The Roberts court leaves no other choice at the higher levels.
