Although the U.S. Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions programs last week, it did not eliminate the consideration of race entirely.
“Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise,” wrote Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in his majority opinion.
But Roberts made it clear that race must be connected to an applicant’s individual qualities that make him or her a good match for a college, not a factor on its own.
“A benefit to a student who overcame racial discrimination, for example, must be tied to that student’s courage and determination,” the chief justice noted. “Or a benefit to a student whose heritage or culture motivated him or her to assume a leadership role or attain a particular goal must be tied to that student’s unique ability to contribute to that university.”
Here, Roberts sounds as if he is describing nothing so much as the outlines for archetypal college application essays, those 650-word (or shorter) pieces where high school students do everything possible to put an interesting face to their transcripts and stand out from the pack. Now, if students of color want to have their racial or ethnic background considered, it seems as though they’ll have to use their essays as the forum. It’s already stressing them out.
“Yet again, students of color have to do more than anyone else to prove their value in a society that constantly puts them at a disadvantage,” said Stacey Brook, founder of College Essay Advisors, an application essay consultancy. “White students don’t have to think about their essays this way,”
Brook and other college essay experts who spoke to Diverse about the ruling mostly agreed that it increased the significance of that part of the application.
