Cardona vows to help colleges reach diversity goals after Supreme Court affirmative action ban
Breccan F. Thies
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Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said his department will help universities find ways to boost racial diversity at college campuses despite the Supreme Court blocking affirmative action on Thursday.
“This is not the last word,” Cardona vowed on ABC’s Good Morning America Friday morning. “We recognize the importance of making sure our college communities are as beautifully diverse as our country.”
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Cardona set out a plan of action for his department to issue guidance and find schools that have set up successful diversity-conscious systems that exist where race-based admissions were already banned.
Within 45 days, the Education Department will interpret the court’s ruling, in which Harvard University’s and the University of North Carolina’s race-based admissions schemes were both deemed unconstitutional and in violation of the equal protection clause, and issue guidance to universities across the country as to how to proceed with their diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.
Cardona on GMA
In July, the department will hold an educational opportunities national summit. By September, Cardona said the department will publish a report on national best practices for colleges with schemes to promote DEI.
“We’re going to do that with the intention to make sure that we continue to welcome and embrace diversity in our college campuses,” Cardona said.
“We’re going to work really hard to make sure that we mitigate some of the potential impact,” Cardona added, referencing a California initiative in 1996 that made race-based admissions illegal. “The number of black and Latino students dropped — it plummeted 50% — so we want to prevent that from happening nationwide.”
In the wake of the ruling, Harvard also hinted at pursuing loopholes to the Supreme Court’s decision, focusing on one line of the lengthy decision that states, “Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”
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“We will certainly comply with the court’s decision,” a letter from Harvard leadership said, answering the line from the decision.
The Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.