Affirmative action

A congressman there's plenty of data from California that when the California band uh using race as one factor in admissions the admissions of black students other students of color declined dramatically Andrea what isn't being talked about enough is the harm this is going to do for students not just like in Latino students but white and Asian American students consider students going to Harvard who want to become the future political leaders in this country the future president Senators Congress people you think they're going to have a better chance of doing that and doing that successfully if they're in classes that don't have adequate representation from African-Americans and Latinos are they going to understand the country or think if someone wants to be CEO of Google or Apple in my district I can tell you from talking to those CEOs how much they have to interact with people in every diverse Community you're doing a terrible disservice to the Future Leaders of this country in a multi-racial multi-ethnic democracy how do you see universities now trying to tailor their admissions programs to create diverse classes it's going to be a challenge I mean Justice Roberts did have that line that students can talk about race and their personal uh essays I I imagine that they will try to have a more qualitative assessment on essays to comply with the Supreme Court they're going to have to look as you've discussed earlier about not having as many Legacy emissions not having as much Reliance on standardized test scores but look I represent an Asian-American majority District I understand some of the the sentiment there and what I say to people in my own district is many people in the Asian American Community wouldn't have been in America if it weren't for the Civil Rights Movement my parents probably wouldn't have been in America the Civil Rights Movement led to the 1965 Immigration Reform Act that's what allowed people from Asia to start immigrating to the United States so we owe an enormous debt to the Civil Rights Movement and in fact it was LBJ in 1965 right after the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the fair housing law and a lot of the other big major cases that gave a big speech about the importance of diversity and affirmative action do you think that at this stage that colleges can you know find ways to as you point out standardized tests not to use the standardized tests which clearly Advantage those schools those kids who come from schools that have you know all kinds of tutoring and special prep programs for the SATs and other tests the way for standardized tests and I think they can look at a person's essays again Rob Robert says that you can talk about races part of your life and the reality is Race Matters race is consequential to people's lives and so if we are being honest about the adversity folks face the challenges they overcome they're going to talk about race and I think that the colleges are going to have to figure out how they do that be while being consistent with the court decision but from talking to University presidents who expected this decision it's not really a surprise they are a candid that this is going to be a challenge and they're concerned about the leaders that they're going to be producing for American society they know that this country is 60 white non-hispanic that it is incredibly diverse that race continues to be a polarizing issue dividing our nation and they're concerned whether they're going to be able to expose people to all of the diversity of this country that is necessary for them to produce great leaders