Affirmative action has become a sensitive and widely debated topic in recent years. The idea that race should be considered in college applications had been instituted in order to solve issues regarding diversity and racial inequality. With the use of affirmative action, colleges increased the diversity in their classes and helped students develop a better understanding of different cultures.

Abraham Sierra, a Senior at La Jolla High School, feels that affirmative action is vital stating, “it is beneficial to promote a diverse group of students in colleges. California should not have taken it away because of all its benefits. It helps reduce inequality and discrimination from different races and minorities.” Affirmative action has helped reduce historical discrimination in the past since it emphasizes different points of view and backgrounds. Exposure to different perspectives helps reduce stereotypes and prejudice.

Abel Delgadillo, another student from La Jolla High School, thinks affirmative action is important stating, “affirmative action has been seen to help reduce the disparity and gap between less privileged students and the average white student. By giving equal opportunity to those of marginalized communities, we ensure that less represented groups get an equal voice and presence in power.” Affirmative action can be a means to break the poverty cycle that marginalized groups are stuck in. It provides an opportunity for those who are underprivileged. 

While the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions on June 29, 2023, declaring that race cannot be a factor in college admissions, it is imperative to understand both sides of the story.

Voters in 1996 banned the use of race-based admissions at California universities, such as UC Berkeley. Image via UC Berkeley.

Race. A factor, until recently, defining a person’s actions, prejudices, opportunities, and how the world viewed them as individuals due to centuries of oppression and hatred. Today, inequality has once again reared its ugly head in the form of Affirmative Action in university applications, which inadvertently became the thing it had set out to eradicate. Affirmative Action was created as a means of creating more diversity and equal opportunities in universities across the US by making race a factor in how colleges evaluated their applicants. This essentially meant that if a student earned high grades and proved to have an efficient work ethic, they could be rejected so that a student with potentially lower grades could attend in their place simply because of their heritage. While the intentions were pure, this resulted in hard-working, dedicated students receiving rejection letters from their dream schools despite working relentlessly to get into them, showing a clear and uncomfortable resemblance to discrimination.

Freshman Tyson Boring commented on this system: “Just because they’re a certain demographic doesn’t mean they should be put in college or jobs before other people.” Freshman Andrew Lee agrees, saying, “It [race] should be irrelevant.” Instead of putting everyone into a single race, he suggests focusing on the individual’s own experiences and backgrounds. Student Selma Salih comments, “Education, where they live, and income should come more into play.” All the interviewees concluded that there could be a better, fairer system to promote diversity in universities that didn’t rely on race, such as income, area code, and the amount of resources available to each student. It is clear that while a system is needed to encourage diversity and assist students in college, Affirmative Action is disappointingly just another dead end on the never-ending path of progress.