It’s time for a new approach to creating opportunities for all in education

The vision of this country as a land of opportunity is longstanding and powerful. We ask our children, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” and tell them, “the sky is the limit.” We encourage them to be doctors, teachers, artists, engineers, lawyers, and scientists — and beyond. We encourage them to pursue higher education because we want to believe the American ideal that every child who wants to go to college has a fair shot, no matter the color of their skin, who their parents are, or where they grew up.   

But despite our desire to create this opportunity for those who have the will, talent, and desire to achieve it, this promise of a “fair shot” remains out of the grasp for far too many. We have yet to ensure that the American ideals of freedom and opportunity ring true for all students. This demands our full attention, immediate action, and a redoubling of our commitment to expand opportunity. Our K-12 schools are growing increasingly segregated racially and economically, resulting in a system that rolls out the red carpet to opportunity for some while slamming the door shut for others. Students of color are more likely to attend schools with fewer resources, fewer extracurricular offerings, and fewer advanced placement courses. These disparities, coupled with the disproportionate discipline of Black students, results in, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor describes it, “unsurprising achievement gaps along racial lines.” At the college level, although enrollment of students across races and ethnicities has increased, we have yet to see a broad representation of students of all races and ethnicities, particularly at selective colleges.  

It is in this context that affirmative action admissions practices were born, including the consideration of race as one of many factors in admissions, to ensure that despite continued segregation and opportunity differences, students across race and ethnicity would learn together at the college level.  But with the Supreme Court’s decisions in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina limiting that tool, we must find new solutions to combat exclusion, discrimination, and stratification.   

Now is the time to do more — not less — to retain diversity in higher education. We can still actualize the vision we have long held — we can and should invest in structures of opportunity — for all of our children and for our collective future. It is time for a powerful new approach that creates possibilities for students with perspectives and experiences across race and ethnicity; across socio economic status; across gender; and across rural and city centers alike. In other words, it is time to innovate and embed anti-racist and anti-discrimination practices rather than to accept structural exclusion as a norm.   

Universities must look down every potential avenue to open the doors of opportunity for everyone. Indeed, we must do this more effectively for Black, Latinx, AAPI, AMEMSA, and Native American students.  To avoid replicating societal disadvantages at the college admissions stage requires strengthening the pathways to college through recruitment and preparation, and removing barriers like reliance on biased standardized testing and emphasis on rarified opportunities like AP courses and intensive extracurriculars that privilege the few. We need the talents, innovations, and contributions of every young person to navigate our future. Let us use this decision to push colleges and universities towards a long overdue overhaul of the admissions process altogether. We must, at the very least, develop admissions processes that value qualities such as a student’s desire to learn, character, creativity, ingenuity, and curiosity.  

Beyond admissions, colleges and universities can commit to retaining students of color by improving the student experience to ensure their institutions are welcoming environments that provide a sense of belonging. Offsetting barriers faced by disabled students as required by the Americans With Disabilities Act; delving more thoughtfully for indicators of student achievement and potential than the culture of recommendations, prep courses, tutoring and testing produces; and using financial aid more aggressively to remove barriers to attendance and disincentives to application are all compelling projects that are overdue even had the Supreme Court preserved affirmative action.   

The stakes of our next moves could not be higher. Will we sit and watch the court continue to sow the seeds of a divisive world against the will of the majority? Or will we double down on our commitment to give all children a chance to grow, learn, and follow their dreams? A better future for them — and ultimately for all of us — will depend on our collective dedication to meet this moment by recommitting to broadening opportunity in ways that truly level the playing field.  

Yasmin Cader is the deputy legal director and the director of the Trone Center for Justice and Equality at the American Civil Liberties Union. John Powell is a Professor of Law and a Professor of African American Studies and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and former American Civil Liberties Union National Legal Director.