Affirmative action1 in the form of race-conscious admissions is under legal challenge by a conservative activist organization.2 During the Supreme Court’s October 2022 term, the Court heard constitutional arguments against the use of race in admissions programs at two prestigious universities: one private, Harvard University, and one public, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.3 With these cases coming on the heels of the Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,4 where the Court overturned years of Roe v. Wade precedent, In the wake of the Court’s decision to ban race-conscious admissions in the U.S. v. Wade,5 to hold that abortion is not a constitutional right, many observers have predicted that the Court will decide to ban race-conscious admissions.6 In this essay, I, a first-generation black college graduate from a low-income, single-parent household in the formerly racially segregated Deep South, reflect on my personal experiences as an “affirmative action beneficiary” (AAB)—that is, a student from a minority background who obtained an education at a formerly white-only elite college or professional school. Drawing on my personal experience, I argue for a continued commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion through the use of race-conscious admissions policies in higher education and professional schools. Caveat: Recognizing that the use of race in college admissions is currently heavily regulated by several Supreme Court decisions and arguing that race-conscious admissions should be a remedy for historical and chronic discrimination against black people, I posit that the Court should uphold its precedents and not ban the use of race-conscious admissions practices. To the Court’s conservative justices, I say that race-conscious admissions practices continue to serve the diversity logic of the Court’s existing jurisprudence.7 To the broader audience of people of good will, I argue that the enrollment of black students in elite, formerly white-only colleges and professional schools should not merely serve white interests, that black students have a legal and moral right to choose where they wish to be educated, that black students are entitled to admission because they are academically qualified, that society owes blacks a debt to redress historic racial inequality,8 and that society should promote the social and economic mobility to which blacks are justly and equally entitled as Americans.9

Introduction

I am a black person of African descent who, in 1971, was a highly qualified candidate and was admitted to an elite Ivy League university through affirmative action. Now that the Supreme Court is once again poised to evaluate the constitutionality of race-sensitive admissions, and as I recognize that the Court is likely to prohibit the use of such policies, I wish to testify in favor of continuing the current restricted use of race in college and professional school admissions. In this essay, I advance the position that universities should be academically free to use race as one of many admissions criteria to achieve the educational goal of diversity, a position that was anticipated by Justice O’Connor’s majority opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger.10 To clarify, when I speak of “race-conscious” admissions, I am referring to admissions practices that comply with current principles of the law after decades of Supreme Court decisions—namely, that an applicant is academically qualified for admission, is evaluated as an individual, and is not admitted as a result of a racial quota.11 In other words, an applicant will not be admitted simply because he or she is a black person.

In this testimony, I will (1) present my family history of being victimized by white supremacists in the state of Louisiana; (2) provide a brief history of challenges to the constitutionality of race-conscious college and professional admissions; (3) describe my experiences as an “affirmative action beneficiary” (AAB), being admitted to Yale College in 1971; (4) explain how I contributed to the educational goal of diversity while at Yale; (5) show how I and other AABs have made contributions to society as a result of an inclusive admissions policy; and (6) argue why I believe race-conscious practices are good public policy and should be enhanced, not restricted.