SDS Calls For The Defense of Affirmative Action!

The Supreme Court is set to rule on two cases sometime this year that will determine the constitutionality of affirmative action. The cases are brought by a Republican-backed front organization led by Edward Blum, who has been working for decades against affirmative action. The Republican-backed majority Supreme Court has already struck down the popularly supported precedent, set by Roe v. Wade, that protects the right to an abortion. Without affirmative action, the number of underrepresented groups in higher education will drop significantly.

Affirmative action, in which universities consider a student’s race among the factors they look at for admission, is used to provide more equitable opportunities for students from underrepresented groups. It became a more widely used policy after the Civil Rights movement, before which many groups, such as Black students, were institutionally restricted from higher education. Even with current affirmative action policies higher education is still inaccessible to many students across the country.

SDS has a long history of fighting to keep universities accessible to all students. Our chapters have fought to save vulnerable departments such as foreign languages and Africana Studies, against tuition hikes that would make university more inaccessible, and to increase Black student enrollment. Universities only changed their racist and exclusionary policies because of student activism in the past, so only a strong student movement can save them now.

We demand that the Supreme Court rule in favor of keeping affirmative action legal.

Defend Affirmative Action!

Increase Black, Chicano, and Latino Enrollment!