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In 1971, I was accepted into Yale College despite my being Black.
Let me explain.
Throughout their history, Yale and other elite, "white only" colleges and professional schools across the country did not admit Black people. However, in the 1960's, to comply with federal law, those white-only colleges took "affirmative action" to address their history of racial segregation. Currently, colleges may consider a person's race as one of many factors to achieve diversity.
On Oct. 31, the Supreme Court will hold a hearing to decide whether to ban the use of race in college admissions. If the court orders such a national ban on race-conscious admissions, it is likely that colleges will need to spend billions of dollars to recruit Black applicants. Furthermore, such a ban would ignore the debt owed to Black people, who have faced the negative consequences of centuries of injustice against Black people; enslavement and segregation, both based on race.
My own story is a testimony to the remedial value of affirmative action. In 1953, I was born into a racially segregated Louisiana, when "white-only" schools were the norm nationally. Throughout my childhood, I had no choice but to attend Black-only schools. Furthermore, I was denied access to public playgrounds and swimming pools and was required to sit in the back of the bus.
My trauma was exacerbated when I watched nine Black high school students physically denied entry to Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, by then-Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, backed by a mob of white supremacists in 1957. To ensure the students' enrollment, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered 1,000 troops of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division, to enforce a federal court's desegregation order.
More than 13 years later, I learned that Yale was enrolling qualified Black applicants. Perhaps, Yale's affirmative action admission policy was a positive factor in its decision to admit me. Possibly, Yale envisioned an American future where Black people would play a leadership role. In either case, I applied, attended, and excelled at Yale and later succeeded in the Yale Law School and at Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar. I was more than qualified when I was admitted to Yale in 1971, and certainly not merely because I am a Black person. No Black person is accepted to Yale then—or now—simply because they are Black.
I was admitted despite the fact that I was Black and had suffered one disadvantage after another—one obstacle after another—before I ever had the chance to apply to Yale or any other elite school.
Today, white supremacists continue their battle to segregate Black people from formerly white-only, elite public and private colleges and professional schools. Further, some white and Asian applicants argue that they are and have been denied admissions notwithstanding their belief that they are more qualified than some Black applicants. They and others argue that affirmative action is "reverse discrimination" and promote "race-neutral" admissions. It is this argument that the Supreme Court has decided to revisit this month.
Affirmative action should be re-affirmed in the upcoming Supreme Court cases for various reasons. First, my personal story exhibits that enrolling Black people in former-white, elite colleges and professional schools benefits those Black students, their fellow students of all races and backgrounds, and society as a whole. Second, affirmative action is not merely about adding diversity to campus life and culture.
It is also remedial, as a debt owed by these schools in particular and society in general for their past discriminatory practices and disenfranchisement of Black people. Third, academic institutions, including many of those that are operated by religious organizations, recognize the market demand by employers who are seeking Black people to fill various positions.
Therefore, the Supreme Court's issue of a national ban on affirmative action in education would be a significant mistake. Rather than creating an obstacle to recruiting Black people to apply to elite schools, the Court should send a positive message to Black people that their lives matter on elite college campuses and in professional schools.
Mitchell F. Crusto is the Henry F. Bonura, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
