Ameshia Cross explained to Howie Kurtz why the merit basis for college enrollment has been always been a sham argument against affirmative action while legacy applicants are more of a problem for colleges.
Fox News guest Ameshia Cross dismissed John Roberts add-on opinion as non-consequential to the effects the kangaroo Supreme Court's decision will have on minorities. She also explained that affirmative-action has never been really understood in this country as a whole.
No, because at the end of the day, affirmative action in college admissions, as it has been known for decades now, is dead.
And that little note from the chief justice does not change those things.
The worry that minorities, particularly black and brown people, have, one, is that most Americans didn't fully understand what affirmative action was to begin with.
So this argument against merit has always been problematic because the individuals who were applying to these top tier institutions were largely people who topped out on their ACT, on their SAT as well.
They just happened to be black or brown and in previous years had not been allowed admission, regardless to being heads of several organizations in high school, having jobs, doing all these things and having robust applications.
The other thing is that our college admissions process has only gotten more white.
The greatest beneficiaries of affirmative action are white women, not blacks or Latinos.
Beyond that, 70 percent of Yale and Harvard admittees are there because of legacy admissions, not because of affirmative action at all.
Affirmative-action came into play because highly qualified minority applicants were never even considered for enrollments by many prestigious and local colleges before
Republicans consistently claimed since 1961 that unqualified Blacks and other ethnic group's were hand-delivered college enrollments just because of the color of their skin and never dared to look at their qualifications.
Now about legacy applicants. How does your parent's high school application and enrollment have anything to do with their kid's application?
If Roberts wants a true meritocracy, then they should ban all legacy enrollments.
“Let’s be clear: affirmative action still exists for white people. It’s called legacy admissions,” Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat, said on Twitter.
How many qualified minority candidates were denied enrollment because of this?
NPR reports, "At Harvard, which released years of records as part of the lawsuit that ended up before the Supreme Court, legacy students were eight times more likely to be admitted, and nearly 70 percent were white, researchers found."
"An Associated Press survey of the nation’s most selective colleges last year found that legacy students in the freshman class ranged from 4 percent to 23 percent. At four schools — Notre Dame, USC, Cornell and Dartmouth — legacy students outnumbered Black students."
