CHA's Director Statement on US Supreme Court Affirmative Action Decision

CENTER FOR HUMANTIES & THE ARTS DIRECTOR STATEMENT ON THE JUNE 2023 US SUPREME COURT DECISION ON RACE BASED AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN UNIVERSITY ADMISSION CASES

I am a first-generation college student, the daughter of a refugee father from China and an immigrant mother from Jamaica, whose own parents were immigrants from Hong Kong. Neither of my grandmothers had more than the equivalent of a high school education. I am director of the Center for Humanities & the Arts (CHA), a CU Boulder Ethnic Studies Professor, and a scholar of Asian American studies and Critical Race Theory. I am not speaking on behalf of CHA or Ethnic Studies or CU Boulder, but I am taking a moment to share my expertise and my life experiences to explain my deep dismay at the Supreme Court decision and to encourage others to not read too broadly into the decision.

At the CHA we believe in Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI), and our programs are aligned with CU Boulder’s IDEA plan that acknowledges the systemic harms that Black, Indigenous, Latine, and Asian American people have experienced in the US because of the ideology of white supremacy. The June 2023 Supreme Court decision abolishes the use of race as a barometer for admissions in colleges and universities. It does not prohibit the discussion of race for individual student candidates as the ruling clearly states on page 8 of the syllabus, section (f):

“nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university."

It is imperative that colleges and universities not over-react to today’s ruling and roll back programs that support students of color and address the role of settler-colonialism and white supremacy in higher education.

Finally, as an Asian American studies scholar and an Asian American woman, it enrages me that the model minority myth was central to the majority ruling and that Asian Americans were used as pawns and plaintiffs in the Student for Fair Admission case. I am an Asian American who has benefited from Affirmative Action. I was one of three students of color in my English PhD program (not cohort—program) at Boston University in 1995. I was the first Asian American postdoctoral fellow for faculty diversity at UNC Chapel Hill in 2003. I was the first Asian American studies scholar & first Asian American person hired in 2005 in UNC Chapel Hill’s English Department in a tenure track position, hired because of a target of opportunity program, which was an affirmative action program. I am the first woman of color to direct the Center for Humanities & the Arts. I would not have the career I have were it not for programs that looked at my race and acknowledged the ways systemic racism has harmed Asian Americans from entering into higher education, especially within arts and humanities spaces. I believe in affirmative action because I believe white supremacy is real and harms people, preventing them from being who they are: fully enfranchised humans.

Dr. Jennifer Ho
Director, Center for the Humanities & the Arts