How North Carolina students view the lawsuit threatening affirmative
action
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[April 25, 2023]
By Gabriella Borter
CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina (Reuters) - In a bustling sunken courtyard
at the center of the University of North Carolina's Chapel Hill campus,
a group of students handed out slips of papers with a warning for their
peers.
"Is diversity at UNC important to you? It’s under threat," the handouts
read.
The message came ahead of U.S. Supreme Court rulings in a pair of
affirmative action cases this spring, which could drastically alter how
race is considered in admissions at North Carolina's flagship university
and other colleges.
The debate over race-conscious admissions policies comes as many schools
are grappling with their racist pasts and striving for greater inclusion
of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups.
But like much of America, students at UNC are divided on the issue of
affirmative action - the practice of factoring race in admissions to
boost minority enrollment - and the role it should play in creating a
diverse student body.
Interviews with more than a dozen students revealed that most valued the
benefits of diversity and thought the university should do more to
correct its blemished record on race.
Many students felt affirmative action was needed to achieve those goals.
Others were uncomfortable that race gave certain applicants an edge in
UNC's competitive admissions process. Some said they avoided the topic
because of the tension around it.
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"People don’t really want to think about something like their race being
accounted for getting into a university," said Sarahann Bu, a Burmese
Chin American sophomore, who supports the practice.
Jacob James, chair of the College Republicans, said schools with
tarnished racial histories are overcorrecting and discriminating against
white and Asian students, when they should focus on promoting
intellectual diversity.
"That’s not to say that including people that are Black and brown isn’t
important," said James, who is white. "But I think that it’s pretty
cynical to say that if we don’t give them outsized advantages then they
won’t be able to make it here."
ASIAN STUDENTS AT ODDS
When sophomore Sarah Zhang learned last autumn that the Supreme Court
might ban race-conscious admissions, she helped launch UNC's Affirmative
Action Coalition to alert other students to the stakes.
"This could potentially change the entire landscape of what our
university looks like," she said.
In oral arguments, the court's conservative majority appeared
sympathetic to the claim by Students for Fair Admissions that UNC and
Harvard University's policies put white and Asian American applicants at
an unfair disadvantage.
UNC and Harvard countered that race is only one of many factors in their
admission processes and that curbing its consideration would thwart
their goal of fostering a racially diverse learning environment.
A half dozen Asian American students, including Zhang, now lead the
school's Affirmative Action Coalition. Members said fellow Asian
students have criticized them for supporting a practice those students
believe give other minorities a boost in admissions at their expense.
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Members of the University of North
Carolina’s diverse student body relax on campus as the Supreme Court
weighs the issue of affirmative action in college admissions, in
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S., April 5, 2023. REUTERS/Jonathan
Drake
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Apr/25/images/ads/current/heartland_lda_040123.jpg)
Zhang, who is Chinese American, counters that race-conscious
admissions have helped increase Asian enrollment.
Asian American and Pacific Islander enrollment in U.S. colleges
increased sixfold in the few decades after schools implemented
affirmative action in the 1960s and 70s, according to data from the
National Center for Education Statistics.
"It's kind of frustrating," she said. "It's creating a wedge between
us and other communities of color."
Another Chinese American student, who asked not to be named for fear
of social repercussions, said she felt like she was "put up against
other Asian Americans" in the application process because of
affirmative action.
"I like what it stands for. I just wish it didn’t make it harder for
any groups to get into college," the student said.
RACIAL REMEDY
At UNC, students live and learn in buildings that were segregated by
race when the school first admitted Black students in the 1950s.
Over two centuries ago, enslaved Black people built some of those
buildings brick by brick.
Clashes between students and school officials over UNC's racial past
have escalated recently. Students toppled a Confederate monument on
campus in 2018 and this year decried the university Board of
Governors' decision to scrub language about "diversity, equity and
inclusion" from hiring forms.
"We have not dealt with our racial problems. Therefore, there has to
be a racial remedy," said Geeta Kapur, an alumna who wrote a book on
UNC's racial struggles.
The upcoming court decision will rest on whether the justices think
UNC has a strong enough case for needing affirmative action to
ensure diversity, regardless of its past.
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UNC said in court documents that it has devoted years to studying
race-neutral admissions strategies, and none have proved sufficient
at maintaining or exceeding enrollment of underrepresented minority
students.
The school's undergraduate population as of last autumn was about
56% white, 9% Black, 12% Asian and almost 9% Hispanic.
The overall population of North Carolina, by contrast, is 62% white,
22% Black, 3% Asian and 10% Hispanic.
Jean Camejo, a junior who immigrated from Cuba and worked two jobs
in high school, credits affirmative action for bringing him to UNC.
He worries a ban on the practice would mean other promising
applicants of color may never get the same chance.
"I understand what it's like to struggle from a low-income
background with all the odds against you," he said.
(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Lisa
Shumaker)
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