Fisher Case May Sidetrack Black Students' Demands

WASHINGTON - Dec. 9, 2015 - PRLog -- WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 9, 2015):  Minority students at many colleges may find their recent demands for increased black enrollment, more role-model professors, new centers or other programs of particular interest to African Americans, etc. sidetracked by colleges as they await a ruling in the Fisher case being argued today before the U.S. Supreme Court, says public interest law professor John Banzhaf.

        If, as some expect and others fear, the Court may soon severely limit the colleges' ability to utilize affirmative action programs to maintain black enrollments, colleges may well stall on making any firm commitments with regard to minority admissions which they might not be able to fulfill, or to committing significant resources to benefit what might be a dwindling number of black students, suggests Banzhaf.

        For example, while the decision in Fisher presumably will not affect the legality of utilizing affirmative action selection procedures to facilitate hiring more black professors, there may be much less of a need for additional role models - one of the major arguments in favor of increasing the number of African American professors - if there are far fewer black students for them to mentor.

        Similarly, colleges may be reluctant to commit major resources to the establishment of new expensive programs in Black Studies, Critical Race Theory, etc. - programs which typically are chosen primarily by black students - if there may not be enough black students in the future to make them viable.

        Also, demands for additional offices or meeting places, separate so-called "safe spaces" on campus for African Americans, or similar arrangement, may seem premature or even unnecessary if there will not be enough black students in a few years to fully utilize them.

        The recent spate of far reaching demands by black students seems to have been triggered by their successes at the U. of Missouri, and similar protests at Yale, Ithaca College, Amherst, Claremont McKenna College, Harvard, and at other institutions of higher education.

        Although these recent successes may have triggered the new round of protests and demands at many other schools, or black students see an advantage is striking while the iron seems to be hot, another reason why they are spreading, and black students are making such strident demands, may be that the black students also realize that a Fisher decision sharply curtailing affirmative action programs at many colleges might well undermine their bargaining power in the future, suggests Banzhaf.

        Thus, unless there are enough clues in oral argument to strongly suggest that the Court is unlikely to significantly curtail affirmative action admissions policies, colleges are likely to stall in dealing with many student demands, perhaps by token steps such as changing the names of some buildings.

        By the same token, if oral arguments suggest that affirmative action policies are likely to be cut back, black students may press even harder to gain and consolidate whatever concessions they can now.

        As the Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting, ”The Supreme Court Could Fuel Campus Unrest in Ruling on Race in Admissions.” To this prediction, Banzhaf adds that the tenor of the arguments themselves in the Fisher case could increase the racial unrest which already affects so many campuses if black students thinks they might lose much of what they have already gained and hope to gain in the near future, and colleges hunker down to await the Fisher ruling without making concessions they may later regret.

JOHN F. BANZHAF III, B.S.E.E., J.D., Sc.D.
Professor of Public Interest Law
George Washington University Law School,
FAMRI Dr. William Cahan Distinguished Professor,
Fellow, World Technology Network,
Founder, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
2000 H Street, NW, Wash, DC 20052, USA
(202) 994-7229 // (703) 527-8418
http://banzhaf.net/  jbanzhaf@law.gwu.edu  @profbanzhaf