The U.S. Supreme Court will allow a hearing of an appeal which could bring negative attention to how affirmative action is currently used in universities and colleges around the country.
In this case, affirmative action gives racial preference to certain students while applying to universities and colleges to give the institution a more diverse population and give students of certain minorities a preference to being accepted.
This will not affect Cal Poly though, due to the 1996 passing of California’s state constitutional Proposition 209 which made it unconstitutional for government-affiliated institutions to consider ethnicity, race and sex while choosing candidates for both employment and public education.
“California Prop 209 already prohibits us from using race, gender or ethnicity in admissions and financial aid,” Cal Poly Enrollment Development vice provost James Maraviglia said. “(The) case will mean very little, if anything, to us.”
Proposition 209 only pertains to California, though — affirmative action occurs in other areas throughout the country.
In Texas, student Abigail Fisher, a white female, has received attention for trying to stop any form of racial preference in university and college admissions. CNN reported Fisher did not get accepted to the University of Texas due to the school’s “race-conscious admission policies.” The university backed its decision, stating the school’s “drive for racial and ethnic diversity is educationally enriching.” It said the school’s admittance procedures benefit all students.
The Supreme Court has been split on affirmative action since 1978, when they held a 5-4 vote in the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke decision, according to a recent Los Angeles Times article. The justices at the time said universities may consider a minority student’s race as a “plus factor” in admissions to bring about more diversity in the class. The same case at another university occurred in 2003 with the same results.
At this point, if the appeal passes, the rest of the nation would simply be coming up to par with California’s equality expectations.
“To me, I believe Cal Poly does have equal opportunities for women,” animal science senior Chelsea Connors said. “I can tell Cal Poly staffs are taking this seriously.”
But one college at Cal Poly sees it differently.
“Prop 209 deals with the criteria that can be used in admissions,” Fred DePiero, associate dean of the College of Engineering said. “I could say this historically, one thing that happened when Proposition 209 came around was, that it unfortunately did hurt our female enrollment. We would like very much to boost the number of women in engineering.”
The proposition did not allow the college to prioritize or prefer a certain amount of women to be accepted. The engineering department has an overwhelmingly larger amount of male students than females, and DePiero said the department wishes they could equal out the genders easier.
“One thing that has happened, because we can’t use gender as a favoring qualification for female applicants, it has hurt the number of female students in engineering since Proposition 209 came around,” DePiero said. “That’s unfortunate.”
Though the College of Engineering lacks an equal gender level, it isn’t necessarily lacking in racial diversity.
“In some areas we do have a pretty fair amount of diversity,” DePiero said. “I believe we are either 17th or 19th in the nation in College of Engineering in graduating Hispanic and Asian students. So in an absolute sense, we’re not that bad off. But we’re not that high in women.”
Though it will not directly effect Cal Poly, if passed the appeal would create equality in admissions for all higher education students around the country, no matter what race and ethnicity, or gender.