Tomorrow. The Supreme Court is to hear oral arguments in two cases
that asked the justices to overturn decades old precedents that have
allowed colleges to consider race as one factor in admissions decisions
in order to create diverse student bodies. Opponents of that practice
say that any decision based on race is wrong.
Angel Perez is CEO of the National Association for College Admission,
Counseling and National Group of College Admissions and Counseling
Professionals. The group has filed a brief with the Supreme Court
defending the use of race in college admissions. Angel Perez. Thanks
so much for joining us from your perspective, what's at stake in
these cases tomorrow?
I think there's a lot at stake. I think the ability for institutions
of higher education to diversify is at stake, as well as for students
of color, in particular to gain greater access to higher education.
It's it's a pretty big moment in history. The driving force behind
this is a organization called Students for Fair Admissions. It's
run by Edward Bloom. We asked him what his aim is in these cases.
And he said, We believe that a student's race should not be used
to help or harm that student's chances of being admitted to a competitive
college. What's your response? I disagree. I think it's important
for the American public to know that most institutions of higher
education use race as one factor of many, many factors in what we
call holistic college admission.
And so it's really important for institutions to be able to take
into account the entire lived experience of a student and that takes
into account race. It's very difficult to actually evaluate a student's
entire life without really taking that into account. Have you reconcile
that or or or to the to the ideal that we're being taught of of of
a race? Blind society were race doesn't matter.
Yeah, I think that should still be the goal. But the reality of the
matter is and we have certainly seen this in the past several years
with a racial reckoning in this country is that we are not there.
Yet. Race still matters in this country and also it's very clear
that we have many marginalized populations. There are many students
with your resources. The majority of those students do tend to be
students of color and so taking all of these factors into account
is really important so that we can continue to try to ensure that
Many students who deserve to be at institutions of higher education
have access to do so. If the students refer admissions were to prevail,
and the Supreme Court were to say that colleges cannot consider race
as a factor in making decisions.
How big a change would this be to the college admissions process?
I think it's important for students to know that they probably will
not see a change in their process. What will change is how colleges
and universities diversify their applicant pools the way they might
reach out to students the way they might recruit students. And certainly,
what's going to change is that when admission officers are evaluating
applications, they will not be able to take race into consideration,
But they will continue to use holistic college admission. There are
two states, California and Michigan, where the voters have said by
ballot initiative that that race
It's an ethnicity cannot be used in admissions decisions at state
universities. What's the track record? How have they done? I think
we can learn a lot from Michigan as well as California, and the one
thing I think is important for people to know is that both of those
states have now been successful in recruiting diverse populations
into their institutions. But when prop two Oh nine, for example,
happened in the state of California
There was a very large drop in the enrollment of students of color
for several years before institutions were able to recruit those
numbers, and so a big part of where the focus is going to be in the
future is recruitment. So aren't you sort of acknowledging that the
other side has a point that you can achieve diversity without using
race as a factor in admissions decisions? You certainly can.
But it is very, very difficult. And one of the things that the University
of California has stated very clearly is that they still have not
achieved the numbers that they had before of students of color, even
though they are in, you know, the most diverse state in the nation,
And for me, this is really important because it's not just about
college admissions. This is about the future of a nation. This is
about whether or not we are going to teach young people to be able
to engage across difference to be able to learn from each other.
We're already a deeply divided nation. Imagine if college campus
has become less diverse. Angel Perez of the National Association
for College Admission Counseling Thank you very much.