Last week was a busy one here at the Center for Equal Opportunity. After word broke in the New York Times late Tuesday that the Justice Department was planning to take on affirmative action in college admissions (a story I was quoted in), a predictable media frenzy was unleashed to cover the story. Of course, the usual suspects on the Left attacked the Trump administration and played the race card, labeling any effort to stop racial preferences in college admissions as “racist,” but the Center for Equal Opportunity was out in full force to applaud the Justice Department and educate the public on the legal and moral problems created by college and universities treating applicants differently based on their skin color or ethnicity.
We gave literally dozens of interviews on radio, TV, print media and the internet throughout the week, many of which are posted on our website (www.ceousa.org). We were quoted in both the original New York Times story and the follow up on Wednesday, as well as The Washington Post. CEO chairman Linda Chavez appeared on CNN Wednesday and CEO Executive Director Rudy Gersten’s full statement was carried by CNN.com verbatim.
It’s unclear exactly what the Trump administration’s future plans are for taking on these pervasive race-based preferences in college admissions, but we have been encouraging by this development and have been urging them to do so since Day 1. And we will continue to.
Below is our press release on the announcement.
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CEO Praises Justice Department on Affirmative Action plans
Affirmative action in college admissions should be examined
The Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) applauds the Justice Department for its plan to take on affirmative action in college admissions. It is a welcome and overdue development that the administration will be taking a hard look at schools that insist on weighing skin color and national origin in deciding who gets admitted. Such discrimination is lamentable, although, unfortunately, the Supreme Court has not shut the door on it. However, the Court has made clear that the exception it has carved out for legal racial discrimination is a very narrow one.
Unfortunately, the evidence is that many schools use racial preferences sloppily and don’t follow the constraints the Court has set out. By using race and ethnicity rather than actual social and economic disadvantage, racial preferences harm many low-income Asians as well as whites. But it also places many black and Hispanic beneficiaries at a disadvantage, too. Students admitted with lower test scores and GPAs often struggle at institutions where their preparation isn’t sufficient, resulting in higher drop-out rates, lower college GPAs, and failure to graduate in a timely manner, increasing their debt. These same students might well have succeeded at schools where their grades and test scores were the same as those admitted without regard to race or ethnicity.
We welcome the scrutiny of the Justice Department and the Education Department as appropriate and necessary to root out all forms of discrimination and move toward a truly colorblind society.
