For the Whiteheads, an African American family living in the city of Baltimore, race is the talk of the dinner table. In the car to work and school and sports. In the backyard while the children practice sports.
So when the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions at colleges and universities, effectively ending the practice known as affirmative action, the family began talking about it passionately, echoing the range of emotions that people across the country feel invested in the decision. .
Although the result was expected, Karsonya Wise Whitehead, 54, a college professor, said she was so sad that she had to sit down to process “the kind of history that was made in that moment.”
Her husband, Johnnie Whitehead, 59, the principal of a Christian school, said he was not happy with the decision but was skeptical about affirmative action. He hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, but it scared him.
The oldest son, Kofi, 22, texted his brother Amir to share the news, and imagined the chilling effect it would have on the next generation of Black students. Amir, 20, feels that ending affirmative action is wrong because admissions should be based on merit alone.
For Whiteheads, the Supreme Court’s decision – seismic in its power to reshape the admissions process at elite colleges and universities – is another chapter in a broader discussion they’ve had since the their children are still young.
Their conversation reflects, in some ways, the complex and changing perspectives of African Americans grappling with the question embedded in every contemporary racial conflict in the country, from reparations to the system of justice in America: How to deal with the legacy of slavery?
“This is part of our ongoing conversation about the tensions around racism and around race,” said Dr. Whitehead, who teaches African American studies and communication at Loyola University Maryland and is the executive director of the college’s Karson Institute for Race, Peace and Social Justice. “We see different iterations of: ‘What does it mean to be Black in America? Where do we fit in America? Whose America is this? And if we want to have equity, what does this equity look like?'”
The family’s early talks centered on making sure their sons were confident in who they were as young Black men. That gives way to other topics.
Kofi favors reparations but does not know what the appropriate amount of money is for Black families whose ancestors were enslaved. Amir favors reparations in some form, too, saying, “We built this country, we deserve some of it.” Dr. Whitehead is not only in support, but he believes that this is the only way to meet the historical debt. Mr. Whitehead said that Black Americans deserve reparations, especially since the country is paying others it has harmed, but does not see this as a way to solve racism.
When it comes to affirmative action, African Americans overwhelmingly support the policy.
According to a Pew Research Center report released last month, only 33 percent of American adults approve of race-conscious admissions at selective colleges. Forty-seven percent of African American adults say they agree.
The research also revealed that 28 percent of black adults said some believe they have benefited unfairly from efforts to increase racial and ethnic diversity.
A separate NBC poll in April found that nearly half of Americans agree that an affirmative action program is still needed “to counter the effects of discrimination against minorities, and is a good idea as long as there are no strict quotas.” Among African Americans, the number of support for that statement increased to about 77 percent.
The starkly different attitudes on the merits of affirmative action are revealed most profoundly in the words of just two Black justices. Their written exchanges mirror how the momentous decision was discussed, debated and deconstructed by friends and family – including the Whiteheads – at dinner tables, in group chats and on social media.
Justices Clarence Thomas, who attended Yale, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who attended Harvard, challenged each other’s views, agreeing only on the existence of racial disparities but sharply disagreeing on how to it solves.
“As he sees things, we are all inexorably trapped in a fundamentally racist society, with the original sin of slavery and the historic subjugation of Black Americans still defining our lives today,” wrote Justice Thomas, the nation’s second Black justice and a longtime critic. of affirmative action.
Justice Jackson, in his dissent, said that Justice Thomas was “somehow convinced that these facts are irrelevant to the fair assessment of ‘individual success,'” he wrote. In his opinion, the conservative majority of the court showed a “let-them-eat-cake obliviousness” on the issue of race.
In some ways, the Whiteheads’ views on affirmative action are consistent with both of the justices’ arguments outlined in the decision pages.
For Ms. Whitehead, a radio show host, author and daughter of civil rights activists, the dismantling of affirmative action – rooted in the civil rights movement as part of federal anti-discrimination policy – is a ” gut punch.” He said he personally benefited from affirmative action as the first Black student in the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies program at the University of Notre Dame. He worries that the decision foreshadows what’s to come, shaping other aspects of life, including corporate hiring.
Mr. Whitehead said he understood the practice as a way to combat discrimination and mistreatment of African Americans. And, he said, if affirmative action is to be eliminated, legacy preferences should be, too.
“I’d like to believe that we are a nation that doesn’t need affirmative action, but I’m afraid we still need it,” said Mr. Whitehead, who is also a teacher at the Baltimore School of the Bible.
Kofi, the eldest son, who graduated from Rhodes College in May with an English degree, feels closer to his mother. He first began following the high school issue after learning about a white Texas student suing the University of Texas at Austin over its use of race in admissions decisions.
He saw last week’s ruling as both irrelevant to the spread of modern racism and a blow to future generations of Black students seeking to attend elite schools. And he resented the argument that the college’s academic standards were being lowered to create separate campuses.
“Affirmative action is about opening the door to different backgrounds because that’s what education and higher learning are about,” Kofi said. “It’s not about having 5,000 of the same kids in two-parent homes and white picket fences all going in and doing the same thing. No. College and higher education is about bring different people so you can learn from each other.”
His younger brother Amir, who is a member of Lafayette College’s fencing team, sees it differently. A college sophomore studying economics, he began developing his political and social conservative views as a student in the middle of the presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump.
While she and her mother’s views are far apart, she says she was raised “to be an independent thinker.”
He agreed with other members of his family that race, and the nation’s history of Black slavery, undeniably affects the present day. However, he said he believes that affirmative action undermines the concept of gaining admission based on qualifications rather than race.
“Affirmative action being taken is not so much a bad thing, because I don’t think anyone who doesn’t qualify for something should get that purely based on the color of their skin,” said Amir, who noted that he included his race in his college application but did not include the subject in his personal essay.
“I’m not saying the bar has been lowered,” he said. “I feel like sometimes, cases come down to race. I think that goes back to us, as a country, where everyone is focused on race.
