The Supreme Court’s decision to halt affirmative action, ruling that colleges and universities must stop considering race in admissions, has a different impact in California.
The state voted in 1996 to ban affirmative action in state college admissions but Thursday’s ruling means private schools will now face the same rules -- including Stanford, Santa Clara College and the University of San Francisco.
The ruling was jarring for some students across the state, including Kiana Wood Munoz of San Jose, who just got her associate’s degree and will be applying to schools across the country this fall.
“What affirmative action meant to me is that I had an equal chance,” she said.
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She’s the first person in her family to go to college.
On top of that, she’s a program coordinator at the African American Community Service Agency in San Jose and helps other students applying for schools as well.
“Now I have to figure out a way to talk with them about affirmative action and how do we take these steps to make sure that regardless of what happens with this ruling, we’re still going to make sure you get into where you need to go,” said Wood Munoz.
On the other hand – Calvin Yang is a rising junior at UC Berkeley. He was part of the group that brought the cases forward after he was rejected from two ivy league schools. He’s celebrating the court’s decision.
“It belongs to all of us who deserved a chance but can now rejoice over the fact that at least our kids can be judged based on their achievements and merits alone,” said Yang of Students for Fair Admissions.
In California, it won’t have an impact on the UC or CSU systems.
Voters banned affirmative action in admissions and hiring at all state institutions in 1996, then voted to uphold it in 2020.
Thursday’s ruling, however, does affect private universities.
“Many institutions are probably going to see an impact, as we did in California after the passing of Proposition 209, where there was a chilling effect,” said Maria Ledesma of the Department of Educational Leadership at SJSU. “You saw a dramatic drop of applications from students of color including Black and Latino students.”
Stanford’s president filed a brief supporting affirmative action and said he’s deeply disappointed by Thursday’s decision writing in a letter to the community, “Stanford will continue seeking, through legally permissible means, the broadly diverse student body that will benefit your educational experience and preparation for success in the world, and that will benefit our mission of generating knowledge.”
Wood Munoz says this won’t deter her college dreams, but she wonders how it will affect her path forward.
“That doubt does kind of set in my head, ‘oh am I going to get rejected more now than I may have before?’” she said.
