Washington, D.C. — Despite the clear evidence supporting affirmative action policies in education—and despite the Supreme Court’s ruling that race-conscious admissions programs are constitutional—the Trump administration is diverting the division’s resources to attack affirmative action efforts nationwide. Today, a new column from the Center for American Progress addresses how the Trump administration is seeking to divide communities of color under the specter of reverse discrimination and the guise of protecting Asian students.
“Affirmative action plays a critical role in extending educational opportunities to all people of color,” said Connor Maxwell, research associate at CAP and co-author of the column. “This administration has escalated its war on people of color, and if it succeeds, countless children of color could face reconstructed barriers to opportunity.”
Unfortunately, the disturbing attempt to attack affirmative action is not so much an anomaly as it is par for the course with the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine programs that extend protections to people of color. Now, while students of color face systemic barriers to educational opportunity and remain underrepresented in postsecondary institutions, this latest announcement will only reverse the nation’s progress towards educational equity.
Click here to read the column.
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