Are we there yet? Gutting of Affirmative Action and its repercussion.

Today the Supreme court abolished Affirmative action and with that we may have taken a few steps back in our growth as a society.

Below is the official response of Cirkled In. Since I’m also a human and a parent, I wanted to add my 2 cents to this official response.  

Cirkled In’s Official response:

“Today's Ruling: Reinforcing Holistic Admissions Decisions:

Given the impact of today’s Supreme Court Decision on recruitment and admission processes at colleges across the United States, I wanted to reach out to share some thoughts. No matter how you feel about the decision, there is no denying that it will force us to refine our enrollment practices. How we identify and recruit students for our educational institutions is bound to change.

During this macro shift, the onus is on us, adults, to ensure that we give opportunities to all youth, no matter where they come from. 

Cirkled In is built on the foundation that a holistic view of a student’s lived experiences is the best way to assess the candidacy and predicted success for any college campus. At Cirkled In, we are seven years into our mission of empowering youth to tell their own multidimensional story and help them navigate their post-secondary pathways.  In light of this morning’s Supreme Court decision, Cirkled In’s offering is even more valuable and necessary.

As you and your institution discuss how to refine your recruitment and admission processes, we’d love to be a part of that conversation. We're well-positioned to partner with you to help reach your goal of enrolling most-likely-to-succeed students without needing to rely on any single variable. 

I wish you the best in this era of change.  Please reach out anytime you want to have a conversation.”

So here are my personal 2 cents. 

As they say, the first step to recovery is admitting that a person has a problem. Once we’ve accepted the existence of a problem, then the path to recovery begins. 

We all want an equal society – equal pay for men and women, equal assessment of a person's skills for college admissions, equal employment opportunity purely based on persons’ skills etc. Of course, we want a race–blind and color-blind society – in every aspect – from employment and college admissions, to pullovers on highways and everything in between.  

That happens if we all start on equal footing.

But are we there yet? Absolutely not. 

Do we want to get there? Absolutely yes!

And until that equal footing is in place, we have work to do. 

It’s like keeping an alcoholic away from bars while they are in recovery. 

We, as a society, are very much in recovery. Meaning, we need to continue our work to bring equality into our system. Specifically for college admissions, it needs to be a holistic review. Access to resources is determined by a person’s zip code and until all zip codes have equal access to resources, we may need to know where a candidate comes from and what resources they have access to. 

So, let’s get to work until we don’t have to. 

And until then let’s keep asking ourselves “Are we there yet?”