End to affirmative action: Letters to the Editor — July 1, 2023
The Issue: The Supreme Court’s decision ruling against race-based affirmative action in colleges.
Does anyone really believe that the cure for racism is more racism (“Justice is color blind,” June 30)?
The Supreme Court correctly decided this case, and the decision should come as no surprise to anyone who has read the 14th Amendment.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent said the court’s decision “closes the door of opportunity that the Court’s precedents helped open to young students of every race,” but this case was in part brought on behalf of Asian students who were denied admission. Are they not a minority?
And what few seem to acknowledge (and you would never know it from the opinions of the liberal minority): Affirmative action was never intended to be in place forever. Good riddance to bad policy that demeans minority students.
John Kapica
Carmel
In ruling against affirmative action in college admissions, the Supreme Court has recognized that a meritocracy is an essential component of a true democracy.
Discrimination against any individual solely based on race is a blatant injustice that engenders divisiveness.
A merit-driven standard for personal achievement is not only equitable and objective, but it incentivizes the individual to strive diligently to achieve his or her goal.
Denis David
East Rockaway
It is about time we stopped affirmative action in college-acceptance selections.
While the intention may have been honorable, this misguided social engineering has resulted in our focusing on the wrong part of the problem and not solving anything.
The real problem is that too many of our K-12 schools are not doing their job. This is especially true for the large inner-city populations of black and Hispanic people, where too many graduates are not prepared to go to college because their education is subpar.
But we have a solution to this problem: It is a combination of charter schools, vouchers for private school, etc.
Larry Hootnick
Water Mill
Not surprisingly, the left is outraged by the Supreme Court’s ruling that affirmative action is unconstitutional.
However, I see a distinct positive of the court’s ruling: This is the greatest single endorsement of the proliferation of charter schools everywhere.
The charter-school sector is predominantly focused on and in minority neighborhoods and their children.
Louie Rey
Summerville, SC
So Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson thinks the recent ruling on affirmative action is a “tragedy for us all.”
Really? Isn’t the real tragedy when the students who worked so hard to achieve excellent grades, which would justifiably entitle them to admission to the school of their choice, are denied because of a circumstance of birth?
Maybe I’m crazy, but shouldn’t the purpose of “affirmative action” be to prevent discrimination against an individual because of his/her race, regardless of whether they are black or even white or Asian?
Now the colleges are free to really act affirmatively and treat every applicant based on his or her individual merit.
Frank DeLustro
Port St. Lucie, Fla.
Since the late ’70s, young people of color have had affirmative action in their corner. And rich, spoiled white kids have had parents who could pay or scam them into the schools of their choice.
Who the heck was advocating on my behalf back then? I was a non-privileged, hard-working white kid whose immigrant father (who had escaped Nazi-occupied Austria and lost both his parents and brothers in the Holocaust) made his living as a presser in a Brooklyn sweatshop. I’ll tell you who: nobody.
What about restructuring affirmative action around class rather than skin color, in the name of lending a helping hand to lower-income young people of worth? Well, to that plan I would absolutely say “Amen.”
Gary Stein
Manhattan
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