In a bustling sunken courtyard in the center of the University of North Carolina’s Chapel Hill campus, a group of students handed out sheets of paper with a warning to their fellow students.
“Is diversity at UNC important to you? He is under threat,” the brochures said.
The message came ahead of the US Supreme Court’s rulings in a pair of affirmative action cases this spring, which could dramatically alter how race is considered in admissions at Carolina’s flagship university. North and other universities.
The debate over race-conscious admissions policies comes as many schools are grappling with their racist past and fighting for greater inclusion of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups.
But like much of the United States, UNC students are divided on the issue of affirmative action: the practice of factoring. career in admissions to boost minority enrollment, and the role it should play in creating a diverse student body.
Interviews with more than a dozen students revealed that most valued the benefits of diversity and thought the university should do more to correct its tarnished record on race.
Many students felt that affirmative action was necessary to achieve those goals. Others were uncomfortable that race gave certain applicants an advantage in UNC’s competitive admissions process. Some said they avoided the topic because of the tension around it.
“People really don’t want to think about something like their race being considered for college admissions,” said Sarahann Bu, a Burmese Chin American sophomore, who supports the practice.
Jacob James, president of the College Republicans, said schools with tarnished racial histories are over-correcting and discriminating against white and Asian students, when they should be focusing on promoting intellectual diversity.
“That’s not to say that including people who are black and brown isn’t important,” said James, who is white. «But I think it’s pretty cynical to say that if we don’t give them big advantages, then they won’t be able to get here.»
Asian students in disagreement
When sophomore Sarah Zhang learned last fall that the Supreme Court could bar admissions on racial grounds, she helped launch the UNC Affirmative Action Coalition to alert other students to what’s at stake.
“This could potentially change the whole landscape of what our university looks like,” he said.
In oral arguments, the court’s conservative majority seemed sympathetic to Students for Fair Admissions’ contention that UNC and Harvard University policies put white and Asian American applicants at an unfair disadvantage.
UNC and Harvard countered that race is only one of many factors in their admissions processes and that curtailing its consideration would defeat their goal of fostering a racially diverse learning environment.
Half a dozen Asian-American students, including Zhang, now lead the school’s Affirmative Action Coalition. The members said their fellow Asian students have criticized them for supporting a practice those students believe gives other minorities an admissions boost at their expense.
Zhang, who is a Chinese American, counters that race-conscious admissions have helped boost Asian enrollment.
Enrollment of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in American universities increased sixfold in the few decades after schools implemented affirmative action in the 1960s and 1970s. according to data of the National Center for Educational Statistics.
“It’s a bit frustrating,” he said. «It’s driving a wedge between us and other communities of color.»
Another Chinese-American student, who asked not to be named for fear of social repercussions, said she felt she was «compared to other Asian-Americans» in the application process due to affirmative action.
“I like what it represents. I just wish it didn’t make it harder for any group to get into college,» the student said.
race remedy
At UNC, students lived and learned in buildings segregated by race when the school first admitted black students in the 1950s. More than two centuries ago, enslaved blacks built some of those buildings brick by brick.
Clashes between students and school officials over UNC’s racial past have intensified recently. Students tore down a Confederate monument on campus in 2018 and this year condemned the university’s Board of Governors’ decision to remove language about «diversity, equity and inclusion» from hiring forms.
“We haven’t dealt with our racial issues. So there has to be a racial remedy,” said Geeta Kapur, a former student who wrote a book on UNC’s racial struggles.
The upcoming court decision will be based on whether the judges believe UNC has a strong enough case to need affirmative action to ensure diversity, regardless of its past.
UNC said in court documents that it has spent years studying race-neutral admissions strategies, and none have proven to be sufficient to maintain or exceed the enrollment of underrepresented minority students.
The schools university population as of last fall, 56% were white, 9% black, 12% Asian, and nearly 9% Hispanic.
The general North Carolina populationinstead, she is 62% white, 22% black, 3% Asian, and 10% Hispanic.
Jean Camejo, a junior who emigrated from Cuba and worked two jobs in high school, credits affirmative action for bringing him to UNC.
He worries that the ban on the practice means that other promising candidates of color will never have the same opportunity.
“I understand what it’s like to fight from a low-income background with all the odds stacked against you,” he said.