This week, news broke that the Trump administration will continue with its agenda against affirmative action and “race-based” admissions. Unfortunately for all students, these measures demonstrate a clearly deficient understanding of the reality of affirmative action, what it means to consider race in admission and why these practices were implemented. Our entire educational system stands to suffer as a result.
The ignorance displayed in this decision begins with the basics — conflating two individual concepts. Affirmative action and race-conscious admission are related, but they are not interchangeable.
Affirmative action is described by the Chronicle of Higher Education as “typically understood to mean the intentional promotion of members of minority groups … but colleges practice several forms of affirmative action in admissions, including ones that help the children of alumni and donors, prospective athletic stars, and others.