What Is “Separate but Equal,” and Why Is It Wrong?

On June 29, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court buried the “separate but equal” doctrine in education and its effect on college admissions. Jonathan Butcher wrote the following information in an article published in The Daily Signal.                     

The justices banned the use of racial preferences in college and university admissions programs. Students for Fair Admissions, an advocacy group representing Asian-American students, brought two lawsuits – one against Harvard University and another against the University of North Carolina – charging that the schools used racial bias in their admissions practices and discriminated against these students.

The Supreme Court agreed and rules 6-2 in the Harvard case and 6-3 in the University of North Carolina case that the schools violated the 14^th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Since Title VI of the Civil Rights Act reflects the 14^th Amendment within schools that receive federal taxpayer spending, the ruling applies to federal law as well as the Constitution.

The majority wrote, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” Americans have long supported the ideas in the court’s majority opinion. Surveys find broad opposition to the use of racial preferences.

Results from a Pew Research survey released earlier this month found that 82% of respondents do not think that race or ethnicity should be a factor in college admissions. Seventy-one percent of black respondents and 81% of Hispanic respondents agree. State voters have also rejected racial preferences at the ballot box. Californians have twice rejected preferences, first with the passage of a measure known as Proposition 209 in 1996 and then again with the defeat of Proposition 16 (which would have overturned Proposition 209) in 2020. In 2006, Michigan voters also voted to ban racial preferences.

Now the high court has said university programs “may never use race as a stereotype or negative, and – at some point – they must end.” While citizens and taxpayers have been waiting for this court ruling, many college administrators have been devising ways to continue using race in admissions.

According to an article by Hans von Spakovsky in the Daily Signal, the decision described above “will benefit families all across the country and their high school-graduating sons and daughters who aspire to attend college.” He continued: 

[The] Supreme Court has finally fulfilled its duty to uphold the guarantees of equal protection in the 14^th Amendment and end the pernicious, morally repugnant racial discrimination practiced by Harvard College and the University of North Carolina (UNC), as well as many other colleges and universities.

Those contesting the decision, like President Joe Biden, are simply wrong in their unjust criticism of the Court and their continued support for allowing academic institutions to discriminate in favor of, and against, qualified students based on the color of color of their skin. The critics’ claim, including the dissents written by the three liberal justices on the Court, that the Equal Protection Clause that guarantees all Americans “the equal protection of the laws” doesn’t actually mean what it says and that certain races, such as Asian Americans, can be denied equal protection defies common sense, as well as the text and history of the 14^th Amendment.

Racial discrimination is wrong every single place that it happens. Americans have the guaranteed right to be treated equally. Yet, many Americans have not been treated equally because their skin was the wrong color. Finally, the Supreme Court did away with the “separate but equal” doctrine that has plagued us for so long.