The End of Race-Based Affirmative Action

In a predictable outcome, the Supreme Court ruled that the way Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill considered an applicant’s race was unconstitutional, violating the 14^th Amendment’s equal protection clause. The impact of this ruling reverberates across higher education, as universities and colleges scramble to figure out how to continue working to diversify their campuses while not running afoul of the law. There is a lot of discussion and debate about the implications of this ruling for higher education. Some note the Supreme Court’s ruling reveals a gulf between two views of race and merit. One view promotes a colorblind ideology and believes that an individual should be evaluated based solely on their merit and experiences as an individual, with no consideration of their race. The opposing view believes that an individual’s merit should be considered within the context of their race and lived experiences because, as articulated by Justice Sonia Sotamayor, race has always mattered in a segregated society and continues to matter.

Unspoken Belief in Black Intellectual Inferiority

While the merits of each view are being debated, there is a more difficult and touchier subject that is being avoided in public debate, the unspoken belief that Black people are intellectually inferior. Like the Voldemort character in the Harry Potter books, “he who must not be named”, the deeply entrenched and long-standing belief in Black intellectual inferiority is such a sensitive topic that most people (with the exception of the most explicitly racist people) will not dare publicly speak about this stereotype.

Black students have long contended with notions of being less intellectually capable. The field of psychology played a central role in perpetuating this racist ideology by legitimizing eugenic ideas that resulted in the creation of intelligence tests, which contributed to the belief that “Negroes” were genetically ineducable. Further, because of psychology’s focus on the individual, insufficient attention has been paid to structural and institutional barriers to success for Black (and other minoritized) students that have resulted in what education theorist Gloria Ladson Billings has called the “education” debt, wherein fewer resources and opportunities in schools attended by students of color have contributed to gaps in achievement.

"You Don't Belong Here"

In my book, The Myth of Black Anti-Intellectualism, I argue that no other group of students has been more studied, more misunderstood, and more maligned than Black students. I challenge the idea that Black students are intellectually inferior or anti-intellectual. The unspoken belief around affirmative action goes beyond concerns about “fairness” for all applicants. In my opinion, the opposition to race-based affirmative action is essentially a reaction about the deservedness of Black students to be in elite educational spaces. Black students, the publicly stated argument goes, do not deserve to be in these spaces because their lower test scores and grades mean that a qualified Asian or White student has been denied that opportunity. Furthermore, and this is the belief that is not spoken aloud, they are simply not smart enough to be in these spaces. How do we know this is true? Just ask the countless numbers of Black students who have experienced racial microaggressions by being left out of study groups, especially in STEM classes, ostensibly because their peers did not think they were smart enough to meaningfully contribute to the group.

Less than a decade ago, an American National Election Study poll of 5,500 Black and White Americans revealed that a majority of White people rated Black people as lazier and 44 percent of White people believed that White people are more intelligent than Black people. This same poll also indicated one-third of White people rated Black people as less intelligent and lazier than White people, and a quarter of White people said that Black people were either lazier or less intelligent than Whites, meaning that almost 60 percent of White people viewed themselves as superior to Black people in these traits.

Concerns about being perceived as not belonging and being less intelligent contribute to the mixed support for affirmative action among Black people. It is no coincidence that Clarence Thomas’s staunch opposition is connected to his experience at Yale Law School, which he described as the worst experience of his life because his White classmates believed he was only there because of his race. While support for affirmative action has generally been stronger among Black people than other groups, a recent Pew poll shows that less than half (47 percent) of Black people approved of the use of race and ethnicity in admissions decision.

As a professor and scholar of Black psychology for 25 years, I have been involved in many admissions processes where discussions of Black applicants are often fraught with faculty who are bound by idealistic notions of meritocracy while struggling to confront their biases when evaluating the merits of a disproportionate number of Black applicants who may have relatively lower standardized test scores or grades. Most of these faculty appeared to genuinely value diversity and to want to accept racially diverse students. Accordingly, they dared not say anything about Black applicants that could be interpreted as racist. As is often the case for Black faculty members, we frequently find ourselves in the position of advocating for Black applicants while being fully aware of the unspoken beliefs we know some of our colleagues harbor about Black intelligence. To be fair, there have certainly always been White, Asian, Latinx, Native, and Middle Eastern/North African faculty allies who advocate for admitting Black students along with other racially minoritized individuals because they truly value diversity. However, it can be mentally exhausting knowing that even well-intentioned, “progressive” individuals may secretly harbor beliefs that Black students are just not as intelligent as other students.

How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?

In his book The Souls of Black Folk, the scholar and activist W. E. B. DuBois asked Black people the question, “How does it feel to be a problem?” Black students must constantly grapple with this existential question. In the final analysis, much of the negative attitudes about race-based affirmative action can be traced to a belief in Black intellectual inferiority, an idea perpetuated by the founding American Psychological Association president and eugenicist G. Stanley Hall. While pundits continue debating the merits and meaning of the elimination of race-based affirmative action, I, along with other Black psychologists and non-Black allies, will focus on the ways we can help support underrepresented Black students navigate these hostile educational spaces knowing that there are people who will always question their intelligence and right to be there. This is the emotional work and unpaid labor that comes with being Black. It always has been, and sadly with the Supreme Court ruling it appears that it will be for the foreseeable future.