Readers’ Thoughts on Affirmative Action
Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
The week before last I asked readers for their thoughts on the Supreme Court’s affirmative-action decision.
Replies have been edited for length and clarity.
R. celebrates the decision and has high hopes for what comes next:
The Supreme Court's ruling is a triumph for meritocracy and fairness. It is also an opportunity for both elite private and selective public universities to do something to help poor students in their local regions, such as Boston and North Carolina, to have better elementary and secondary schooling, with the result that more Black and brown students in Boston and North Carolina will graduate from high school academically prepared to attend Harvard or the University of North Carolina, and able to do the same rigorous classwork as their peers.
Harvard has a $50 billion endowment. There is no financial reason that Harvard could not start a private K–12 academic preparatory school, open to all races, with generous financial aid to poor families. To create the likelihood that Black students would predominate in the student body, Harvard could put Harvard Academic Prep in the Roxbury area of Boston. With control over curriculum and student-achievement standards,
