暗黑爆料 brief:
Higher education in the Mountain West will be minimally impacted by the to restrict institutions on their ability to factor race into who they enroll. Still, those colleges and universities that will need to change their admissions practices say they remain committed to fostering diversity within their student bodies.
The ruling is a major victory for opponents of affirmative action. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in that race-conscious admissions policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina violate the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
鈥淲hat we now have is a situation where colleges and universities cannot consider race as race,鈥� said Kevin Welner, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and Director of the National Policy Education Center. 鈥淚n other words, they cannot consider race as a category that a student is put in as part of what was called a holistic analysis of the student's application.鈥�
This decision will mainly affect a couple hundred schools with highly selective admissions processes in the region. Major universities in , , , and have already said they don鈥檛 factor race into their enrollment decisions.
鈥淚n the end, regardless of the tides of legal interpretation, if you have the talent and the motivation to earn a college degree, CSU looks forward to welcoming you,鈥� said a representative for Colorado State University in reacting to the ruling.
Other colleges and universities, meanwhile, have criticized the Supreme Court鈥檚 ruling, saying it will make diversity harder to accomplish locally and nationally as long as elite institutions remain critical pipelines for powerful corporations and organizations. Additionally, in states that have already banned affirmative action, the number of students from diverse backgrounds at major universities.
鈥淚n 2023, American higher education cannot afford to restrict access, or to be perceived as a place where certain people can鈥檛 or don鈥檛 belong,鈥� said University of New Mexico President Garnett Stokes . 鈥淗ere at UNM we will do and be better for our students, for their sake and for the sake of the nation.鈥�
For the handful of schools that do factor race into admissions in the region, , officials say they鈥檙e figuring out how to continue their commitments to diversity. Welner said schools can try and enroll more people of color through outreach programs and give more consideration to essays or other means.
鈥淚f the college and university is paying a lot of attention to those challenges that a child faced growing up, and the denial of educational opportunities that oftentimes comes with being lower income, that also helps to racially and ethnically diversify the class,鈥� he said.
The political response to the decision largely fell along party lines. Republicans , saying it upholds anti-discrimination rights. Democrats inequality in education.
This story was produced by the Mountain West 暗黑爆料 Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West in Montana, KUNC in Colorado, KUNM in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West 暗黑爆料 Bureau is provided in part by the .
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