The Tribune

With CHARLIE HARPER

AMERICANS are justifiably proud of their country. Now quickly approaching its 250th anniversary even as we celebrate a half century of Bahamian independence, the US prides itself perhaps most of all in the accessibility and quality of its higher education system. With hard work and talent, the myth of the American dream provides for every citizen the possibility of advancement to wealth and achievement.

Your vision of the US may not support this narrative, but most Americans still cling to it. It has long been an article of faith that every American can earn a shot at his or her dream. And the most reliable path to fulfilling that dream has traditionally been through higher education.

Many Bahamian young men and women have also benefited from their access to American higher education. While the failure of many to return home with their gaudy new credentials has troubled policymakers in The Bahamas for years, it is nonetheless true that through their own achievements in the classroom and on athletic fields, Bahamians have earned the right to pursue degrees in America.

And those degrees have led many of our most talented young people to careers that have proven to be fulfilling, lucrative and often significant. But now, within the past week, the myths and realities of the American dream and American higher education have been shaken by two US Supreme Court decisions and a likely future lawsuit.

This evolving story in the US is likely to have consequences for the future education of many of our high school graduates.

First, the US high court ruled that a huge student debt forgiveness plan pledged by then-candidate Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential election campaign was an overreach of his authority as president. The Court’s conservative majority ruled that Congressional review would be required for such a programme to be consistent with the American constitution.

Biden’s proposal, welcomed by millions of American graduates struggling under the yoke of massive student debt often casually accumulated during carefree college years, proved to be politically potent three years ago, but the president will now need to find other ways to reduce graduates’ financial burdens. And, mindful of the urgent need to motivate recent college graduates to vote for him next November, Biden has committed to continuing his efforts to provide college debt relief.

“I will stop at nothing to find other ways to deliver relief to hard-working middle-class families,” Biden said. “My administration will continue to work to bring the promise of higher education to every American.”

The Biden administration had argued that the debt relief plan was lawful under a 2003 law that says the government can provide relief to recipients of student loans when there is a “national emergency”, allowing it to act to ensure people are not in “a worse position financially” as a result of the emergency. The emergency in this case was the COVID-19 pandemic.

The plan, which would have allowed eligible borrowers to cancel up to $20,000 in debt and would have cost more than $400bn, had been blocked by a lower court since October.

About 43 million Americans would have been eligible to participate.

If Biden is unable to find an alternative way to offer debt relief to graduates, there will likely be implications for college tuition, financial aid and even accessibility in the years to come.

A second high court decision may also have major significance for Bahamians hoping to pursue higher education in the United States.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional race-conscious policies adopted by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina to ensure the admission of more non-white students. The decision was a major blow to efforts to attract diverse student bodies and is expected to prompt new challenges to admission policies, inasmuch as racial and ethnic diversification can and has been used by US colleges to extend offers of admission to foreign applicants of colour.

This decision by the court’s relatively new conservative majority of justices is widely seen in the context of a process launched with the passage of transformational civil rights legislation in the US under President Lyndon Johnson nearly 60 years ago.

The court’s judgment also significantly weakens an active US-government sponsored effort widely referred to as “EEO”.

Initiated under Johnson but really given teeth under President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s, equal opportunity programmes aimed to accelerate the process of racial and ethnic diversification in the US government.

A key element in the court’s overturning of race-based admissions policies for American colleges and universities is its implications for those institutions of higher learning “who accept federal funds to support their programmes”.

From massive research grants to government-sponsored assistance programmes like Pell Grants, most US colleges and universities do indeed receive federal funding.

This means that the court’s ruling has virtually universal application in the arena of American higher education.

But what about EEO in the US? Many observers now believe that there is plenty of evidence that the programme has succeeded, inasmuch as increasing numbers of black, female and other minority populations are now to be found in, among other places, the US Congress and traditional bastions of white privilege as the US Department of State and Central Intelligence Agency.

At the same time, there are certainly more blacks and other minority groups to be found in the ranks of conservative movements and think tanks, not to mention corporate boardrooms and some of the most exclusive residential areas in the country.

It’s much more difficult now for stodgy liberals to sneer at black or Latino politicians or pundits who advocate for conservative positions.

The notion that a minority person in the US who happens to genuinely believe in conservative principles is somehow an aberration or an “Uncle Tom” ideological sellout is no longer sustainable.

And it’s not just stupendously successful black athletes like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson or Tiger Woods who have achieved significant wealth, power or both. There are two black justices on the Supreme Court.

While many correctly bemoan the scarcity of black and minority faces in American corporate boardrooms, those numbers are gradually rising.

It’s now fair to ask if EEO is done, because it has achieved its desired effects.

The Supreme Court seems to think: Maybe yes.

A third court case has now been filed that may also have implications for Bahamian college applicants in the relatively near future. It’s a challenge to many schools’ policy of favoring “legacy” applicants whose close relatives are also graduates of that particular institution. It is certainly no coincidence that this new challenge to long-standing American college admissions processes comes right on the heels of the court’s decision to overturn race-influenced admissions policies.

Three civil rights groups have filed a complaint, also against suddenly-beleaguered Harvard University, charging that its preferential policy for undergraduate applicants with family ties to the university overwhelmingly benefits white students.

The groups filed a complaint with the US Department of Education claiming that Harvard’s preferences for “legacy” applicants violates a federal law banning race discrimination for programmes that receive federal funds, as virtually all US colleges and universities do.

The complaint was filed by Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston-based nonprofit that describes itself on its website as working with “communities of colour and immigrants to fight discrimination”.

Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, the group’s executive director, said “eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.

“Your family’s last name and the size of your bank account are not a measure of merit, and should have no bearing on the college admissions process,” he said.

President Joe Biden quickly agreed. He said schools should consider eliminating legacy policies because they “expand privilege instead of opportunity”.

Representative Barbara Lee, a black Democrat from California, in a tweet called legacy policies “affirmative action for white people.”

Conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas appeared to agree, wondering why Harvard could not get rid of the legacy policy instead of granting separate preferences to non-white students.

About 28% of Harvard’s class of 2019 were reportedly legacies, the groups said in the complaint.

That means fewer admissions slots were available for non-white applicants who are far less likely to have family ties to the school.

If legacy admissions policies are eventually weakened or overturned, there will be more opportunities for our own young people. Stay tuned.