Affirmative action in college admissions

[Music] yeah are you crying I'm so excited nice yeah look good yeah look very good you're so handsome 18-year-old David Jen is getting ready to graduate high school yep a proud moment for his parents who immigrated from China more than 20 years ago love you Mom I love you too Harvard has been David's dream school once I hit this button my entire future could depend on this moment I was always aiming for the uh Castle on the hill I was always trying to go for Harvard the college was part of a Supreme Court decision last

year that brought a massive policy change and an incredible amount of uncertainty about the future of Campus diversity we do begin tonight with the landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down affirmative action as we know it in college admissions overturning a key tool used for more than 40 years to make campuses more diverse in this country over the past year we've been with the first students to navigate a post- affirmative action world the Harvard application has been especially tough because they kind of switched up their entire application I feel like we're the guinea pigs of the

whole situation admissions officers can no longer use race to judge students applications but students can choose to share that information in their essays possibly putting more pressure on that part of their application you don't precisely know what the school is asking for you to write about David says he decided to lean into his cultural identity in his personal statement were you anxious at all about how talking about your Chinese Heritage may have hurt or helped you it's just a huge part of my identity that I didn't really care if a school does not want to

admit me because I'm Asian-American then there's not much I can do about that cuz it's a part of me that I just can't get rid of by all accounts David is an academically exceptional student with an impressive resume of accomplishments and extracurriculars his high school stent in New York City is one of the top rated public schools in the country my GPA is 97.3 out of 100 um my SAT score is 1560 and extracurricular wise I'm one of the captains for the Stenson math team I'm a team captain for the New York City math team

I'm the starting right side for our school's volleyball team I'm in the All City Latin Jazz Ensemble he applied early decision to Harvard in December he found out the college deferred him if it's deferred that means I still have chance we love you all right we love you then more disappointing news over the next few months as he began to hear back from the over dozen schools that he applied to no you wait list no Princeton it was all like bad news or results I wouldn't have expected like reject weight lless reject weight lless in

March he learned Harvard had rejected him I feel like I also owe it to my parents to sort of make them proud and I feel like by not getting into Harvard I was sort of disappointing them but more importantly I was disappointing myself Adam mortara who helped argue the case that struck down affirmative action on behalf of students for fair admissions says Harvard had previously unfairly held Asian-American applicants to a higher state standard our econometrics expert was able to show that in fact that admissions penalty existed it was predominantly centered in the so-called personal rating

where Asian applicants were given lower personal ratings than white applicants African-American applicants Or Hispanic applicants that so-called personal rating could include traits like humor kindness sensitivity and Leadership while David does not believe race played a role in his rejection from Harvard he says he thinks implicit bias is nearly possible to erase so I think that the stereotypes are that Asian people are sort of reserved uh stick to themselves and just do math problems in their free time did you feel like you had to though purposefully go out of your way to show hey I'm not

like the stereotypical Asian I think I had to I feel like I did kind of have to prove that I'm not the stereotypical Asian Harvard has denied any bias or discrimination against Asian-American applicants in their admission process telling ABC News in part Harford has taken several steps to arrive in compliance with the ruling from the Supreme Court these changes have been made across our recruitment application and admissions practices but critics like Rising Harvard senior Clive Lawrence says they're not so sure there is this real threat of the proportion of black students at Harvard decreasing over

the years I feel uh concern about a chilling effect that black students who otherwise would have applied now are worried that they'll be um facing disadvantages because of the decision that possible chilling effect is something joeli Castillo felt as an afro Latina applicant I think some of my fears are that institutions don't know what to do in terms of uh this new band and they aren't giving much guidance there are already um so many obstacles that disproportionately affect students of color would you rather I read to you the little bit that I wrote she workshopped

her approach with her adviser at the Kaplan Education Foundation when she was applying to transfer from a New York City Community College the decision mentioned that you know it's to that if it affects your lived experience right that you know that is that is a relevant aspect that you can that you can address right her lived exper experience included a lot of obstacles I had a very difficult upbringing I would say my mother was trying her best to Mother three girls after my father had been uh arrested and imprisoned we uh often found ourselves moving

from place to place and sometimes not having anywhere to live at all she says her struggles at home affected her education when high school ended she immediately started working several jobs to help support her family almost a decade later she enrolled in community college and set her SS on a 4-year University I had to play catchup to the other applicants students that have had um the opportunity to have tutors and um Family supporting them throughout the college application whereas I was kind of going in blind she ultimately decided to write about her cultural background and

with a 4.0 GPA joeli found herself with an impressive list of options I'm in I ended up receiving acceptances from most of the schools that I applied to such as Princeton Brown Smith Bard Mount Holio she ended up choosing brown but says she still worries about diversity on campus if we don't continue to try and Elevate students of color that our campuses are going to look the way that they did many years before where there were less students of color according to a 2017 New York Times analysis looking at the impact of affirmative action over

a 35-year period at the top colleges and universities Asian enrollment largely increased while Hispanic and black students mostly remained disproportionately underrepresented nearly 70% of Americans supported the end of affirmative action and some who fought for its end say the college admissions process won't truly be fair until colleges stop giving preference to Children of alumni called Legacies there's no reason that one child should be afforded an admissions preference to an elite University because their parent went there as opposed to the child of say a second generation immigrant family whose parents did not have the opportunity to

attend that institution there's widespread scrutiny over the practice last year the US Department of Education launched a civil rights investigation into harford's use of legacy admissions a number of elite schools have already done away with legacy admissions including John's Hopkins University and Amherst College States like Virginia and Maryland have also joined Colorado to ban the practice at its public universities with more States considering similar proposals but opposition has come from an unexpected group of alumni it's it's a really big deal for us as American descendants of the enslaved to be Legacy and Legacy families Amanda

Calhoun is a second generation Yale grad she's the second doctor Calhoun in her family following in her Father's Footsteps Amanda and her father say they feel affirmative action in its Outreach programs were transformative we're talking about rich white families to enjoy being legacies for now over 300 years so now we're finally you know getting you know multiple generations of people who are at Yale and now you're going to overturn it right when we get a piece of the pie your biggest concern about a future with no affirmative action and no legacy admissions my concern would

be that we would see less Outreach um that we'll see less black students less frankly minoritized students that are feeling empowered to apply to place like Yale and other Elite institutions Yale is currently reviewing its preference for legacy applicants but for now the policy remains in place Harvard says 20.5% of its incoming class will be students who are the first generation in their family to graduate from a 4-year college or equivalent additionally Harvard telling ABC news that nearly one quarter of the class of 28 has no Financial contribution from their parents and just over half

will receive need-based Aid with an average parent contribution of $15,500 oh I got into Duke for David he's made peace with the process he's now a proud member of the class of 2028 at Duke University there's our little blue devil over there I'm really excited just to go to someplace new I felt really at home with the dukee people I was glad I finally got into a school that I would love to go to I'm proud of you thank you