Low-Income White Students Like I Was Cannot Be Used As a Tool To Undo Affirmative Action

A recently published study on racial disparities reveals that, in the vast majority of American neighborhoods, black boys earn far less in adulthood than white boys raised in families with comparable incomes, showing that race is a powerful indicator of social mobility for boys across all social classes. The study proves through data what many of us know through lived experience. Race shapes opportunities and outcomes, regardless of social class.

This fact speaks directly to a debate raging within our courts on the issue of race-based affirmative action. While some conservative legal strategists seek to end race-conscious admissions policies in favor of a class-based approach, these efforts pit marginalized communities against each other and do nothing to level the playing field for underrepresented racial minorities. One such lawsuit against Harvard College argues expanded socioeconomic preferences should replace race-based considerations because they are fairer to Asian and low-income students. Conflating race and class, the lawsuit claims that giving more weight to an applicant’s socioeconomic status can achieve similar levels of “diversity.”

The lawsuit wrongly ignores the reality that race continues to matter in our society separate and apart from class, as reflected by the aforementioned study and my own experience. I was a low-income, white student when I applied to the College in 2003, later attending from 2004 to 2008. Harvard’s admissions policies were in no way “unfair” to me. As an applicant and a student, I witnessed firsthand the importance of policies that affirmatively seek to bridge the racial divides persisting in society today.

In a country riddled with racial biases, race-conscious admissions ensure that fair opportunities for advancement are open to equally qualified students of color from disproportionately marginalized groups: namely, black, Latino, Native American, and Pacific Islander students. Just as importantly, these race-based policies foster greater levels of diversity in university classrooms, which enrich all students through the exchange of different ideas, backgrounds, and experiences.

My own path to Harvard was shaped by race, as I received opportunities as a white student that were denied to my black and Latino classmates. I grew up living, learning, and loving in Richmond, Calif., a predominantly low-income black and Latino community. I played in the same parks as my black and Latino neighbors, and I went to the same public elementary and middle schools challenged by chronic underfunding. My parents did not graduate from college, and we lived paycheck to paycheck. But I was white, and this was a huge advantage. Countless interactions made this advantage apparent.

Consider my study partner in elementary school. She and I were both devoted students, and we received nearly identical grades on tests. Unlike me, however, she was black. While our teacher tracked me for gifted classes, she did not give my study partner the same opportunity. This disparity in treatment occurs in classrooms across the country. A 2018 national study found that black and Latino students are less likely to participate in gifted programs across income levels.

Divergent treatment in discipline represents another type of systemic bias in schooling. There is ample evidence that black and Latino students receive harsher consequences for the same behavior in school. For example, a 2013 study by the Population Reference Bureau exposed various discipline gaps, including dress-code violations, where black students were suspended at a rate six times higher than white students, and cellphone use, where it was eight times higher.

The reality is that racial prejudice impacts the academic credentials collected prior to college. Race-conscious admissions rightly allow universities to be sensitive to such differences when considering each applicant’s capacity for academic excellence, leadership, and resourcefulness in the face of challenges. The result is a better learning environment for students of all races who are confronting in the classroom many of the issues playing out in society today.

As a student at the College, I vividly recall a debate about whether employers receiving identical resumes from two applicants—one with a name, say, “Jamal,” sounding as though it would belong to a black applicant, the other, say, “Brendan,” to a white applicant. My peers were debating whether the employers were justified in summarily rejecting “Jamal” but hiring “Brendan,” his seemingly-white equivalent. Stereotyping ensued, as one male student argued rejecting Jamal was justified from “an efficiency standpoint” if ethnically-named individuals were generally “less productive.” It was only after students from diverse backgrounds spoke up that the majority-white class expressed heightened understanding of the inherent bias that black and brown Americans face every day. Lessons around today’s most pressing issues—which often intersect with race—become real, better informed, and ultimately more effective in a diverse classroom.

These conversations are critical to dismantling prejudices harming our country, but they place an unfair, heavy burden on minority students, who bear the weight of these challenging discussions in classrooms, where they are too often racially isolated and tokenized. Studies have shown that higher same-race representation better supports underrepresented students who constantly encounter prejudiced scenarios. It also better ensures that racial stereotypes can be addressed and overcome in our rising generation of leaders. Race-conscious admissions is the strongest tool for fostering such diversity.

For all these reasons, I am fighting to protect race-conscious admissions. My organization, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, is representing black, Latino, Native American, and Asian American students at Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to defend their universities’ race-conscious admissions policies, so that students on those campuses can benefit from the kind of culturally and ethnically diverse experiences that are in the national interest. I am privileged to help amplify their voices.

Just as some within the Asian community have refused to become a wedge to support conservative attacks on affirmative action, I refuse to let anyone use low-income white kids, like I was, to justify policies that stoke the flames of racial resentment and ignore the experiences of students of color in elementary and middle schools like mine. Increasing access for low-income students should complement—but not replace—increasing access for underrepresented students of color.

Genevieve Bonadies Torres ’08 is a Counsel for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.