It’s too bad that newly confirmed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, as a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers, plans to recuse herself in the upcoming Supreme Court review of the affirmative action case against Harvard.
That’s the case where Asian Americans are claiming discrimination over Harvard’s policies to use race in admissions. It’s a wrong-headed case. And mostly because it focuses on the “getting in” part of an affirmative action policy. More important is how you treat people once you let them in the door.
This is where Jackson could enlighten people how an “affirmative action” policy ideally works.
Emil Guillermo
As we learned during the confirmation hearings, Jackson wasn’t just let into Harvard. She was qualified. But she also had the luck of being placed in a roommate situation with three other African American students who expressed their pre-law tendencies. That common ground helped them discover they all needed support against the dreaded sense of “not belonging.” That’s the feeling many people of color have when they find themselves isolated in white spaces—like Ivy League colleges.
Students, no matter how well qualified for the academic part, often have problems surviving the overall change in their lives away from home. They succeed only if they get real support from the university and from each other. If you watched the first day of the confirmation hearings, then you know the difference that makes.
