Over 60% of American adults against using race in college admissions: Poll
WASHINGTON (TND) — Ahead of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision that could upend the practice of affirmative action, new polling shows 62% of Americans think race and ethnicity should not be considered in college admissions.
Reuters/Ipsos surveyed nearly 4,500 adults between Feb. 6 and 13, finding that 73% of Republican respondents and 46% of Democrat respondents were against considering race in college admissions.
Additionally, the polling showed 67% of white respondents indicated they were against it, while 52% of minority respondents indicated their disagreement with the practice as well.
The poll results come ahead of the Supreme Court's expected spring ruling on cases questioning the practice of affirmative action at Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The schools refute accusations that they improperly discriminate against white and Asian American applicants, butStudents For Fair Admissions (SFFA), the group behind the major lawsuits, insists otherwise.
The Harvard case challenges racial preferences at the nation's oldest private college, and [the UNC] case challenges racial preferences at the nation's oldest public college," according to SFFA. "The Harvard case asks this Court to overrule Grutter v. Bollinger and hold that Title VI forbids federal funding recipients from using race in admissions. [The UNC] case asks the Court to recognize that, for public schools, the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of racial neutrality compels the same conclusion."
According to the Reuters/Ipsos polling, 46% of respondents said social policies like affirmative action are unfair to white Americans. This view was reportedly held by 49% of the poll's white respondents and 39% of its minority respondents.
Amid SFFA's fight against affirmative action, businesses and schools, including UNC-Chapel Hill, have come under fire for scholarships and mentorship programs that exclude people on the basis of race and sex. Furthermore, several other cases have been brought forward against schools other than UNC-Chapel Hill and Harvard, charging them with discriminatory admissions practices.
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Once considered a progressive attitude, color-blindness is now seen as backwards—a cheap surrender in the face of racism, at best; or a cover for deeply held racist beliefs, at worst," SFFA wrote in a Decemberblog post on its website. "But color-blindness is neither racist nor backwards. Properly understood, it is the belief that we should strive to treat people without regard to race in our personal lives and in our public policy."