[中文版本]
In an interview at the AACE 2024 Conference on Equal Education Rights, keynote speaker Gail Heriot, who is a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, stated that there was a concerning lack of meritocracy within U.S. college admissions. Her position as a current professor of law at the University of San Diego has shown her that the college admissions process has “a lot of discrimination going on” and that it is not only negatively affecting the people who were rejected, but the people who were accepted as well.
Heriot explains “I think it's important that students go to a school where they're going to learn the most. And in that respect, it's not simply a question of getting into the most prestigious school.” She believes that when colleges admit applicants to bolster diversity within the student body, it impacts the performance of those applicants because they are participating in a school or program that they may not be academically prepared for.
Additionally, in 1996, Heriot co-chaired the campaign to pass Proposition 209 in the state of California, which amended the state Constitution to say that the state shall not discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to any individual or group based on race, color, sex, ethnicity, or national origin for public employment or services. Then, in both 2020 and 2024, Heriot was part of the opposition to efforts to repeal Proposition 209. She attributes these attempts to repeal Proposition 209 as the result of the misguided thought that “[many people are] doing a good thing to give preferential treatment, for example to African Americans to a lesser extent Hispanics. And they think that this is going to make the country better.” Heriot ties this back to her belief that students should go to a school or college “where [their] academic credentials put [them] in the ballpark with other students”.
She states that it is “educationally unsound to have big gaps in academic credentials between some students based on race.” Professor Richard Sander at UCLA, another speaker at the AACE Conference, revealed that there would be more African American attorneys graduating from law school if there was no preferential treatment, compared to the current situation. “African American students are not being given a favor, by being admitted to a school where their academic credentials will put them at the bottom of the class,” Heriot says.
On the topic of the recent Supreme Court SFFA (Students for Fair Admissions) vs. Harvard ruling that race-based college admissions policies are unconstitutional, Heriot believes that oversight from a third party, as well as strict enforcement and implementation of the new decision, will be necessary for colleges to change their admissions process. “As a lawyer, the law will only take you so far… this has become a very ideological thing, some people insist that they are doing the right thing and they’re going to try and do it under the radar,” she says. She suggests that state legislators should conduct oversight over their state universities to ensure that the Supreme Court ruling is being complied with, with enforcement by the federal government as well.
As for the future of equal education rights, Heriot remarks that many things still need to be accomplished. “One thing is that we have to make sure the public understands what is going on because when the public understands it, they’re on our side.” She says that a large majority of the public believes “what they were told, which is that there isn’t any preferential treatment going on, or that if there is preferential treatment going on, it's just a featherweight in favor of underrepresented minorities.” Heriot also expressed concern about the process by which governors will appoint people to oversee the college admissions changes, stating “we want to make sure that it’s not just friends of the governor that the governor wants to give a nice part-time job to.” She believes that lawsuits or congressional action will be needed to remove certain incentives that the federal government has used to encourage colleges and universities to discriminate or grant preferential treatment.
An example Heriot provided was the Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) which grants large sums of money to universities with a total percentage of Hispanic or Latino students higher than 25%. Heriot criticizes the HSI, stating “Not 25% needy students, not 25% students who struggle with the English language, but just purely a matter of ethnicity. And that’s pretty clearly unconstitutional.”
Outside of the AACE Conference, Gail Heriot continues to champion equal education rights by fighting against unjust or discriminatory policies, whether that is with federal or state governments or local opposition.
(Contributed by the CAPA-MC Junior Reporter Club)
