When the Supreme Court ended affirmative action in 2023, many conservatives praised the decision. But advocates feared that ending race-conscious admissions would negatively impact racial diversity at US colleges.
Now, data suggests their fears may have been warranted, and some workplace experts believe the consequences of ending affirmative action will have a ripple effect on the talent pipeline.
One-two punch. MIT, Tufts University, and Amherst College saw sharp drops in enrollment by students of color this academic year, according to the Washington Post, while Princeton and the University of Virginia haven’t seen such declines. The data is preliminary and mixed, and many schools haven’t disclosed the racial makeup of their new students, but some experts believe diversity will not improve unless colleges change how they recruit.
“I have no doubt that we left out many well-qualified, well-matched applicants from historically under-represented backgrounds who in the past we would have admitted—and who would have excelled,” a spokesperson for MIT said in August.
Shortly after the Supreme Court decision, several states introduced anti-DE&I legislation, eliminating DE&I departments and culture-based clubs at public universities. At least 14 states, including Texas, Florida, and North Carolina, have enacted legislation, while another 14 have passed legislative bodies, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
“The boogeyman, for a while, has been affirmative action, and now that affirmative action is gone, the boogeyman is DE&I,” Elicia John, associate professor of marketing at American University told HR Brew.
Impact on the workforce. Experts who spoke to HR Brew believe that ending affirmative action, and cutting DE&I initiatives in schools, could have a long-term impact on the talent pipeline.
“There’s still quite a bit of uncertainty in terms of what those implications would be, but we can be kind of more confident that it will lead to a downturn in enrollment, particularly in more selective programs,” John said. “[That] will have an implication in terms of career paths for racial minority communities, and have impacts on salary impact implications as well.”
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Lily Zheng, a diversity and inclusion consultant and author, noted that minority communities could have fewer job opportunities and face additional barriers at work.
“We’re going to see the representation of marginalized folks in companies and workplaces drop, and those who are in those workplaces are going to be more isolated,” they said. “They’re going to have less support. It’s not hard to speculate…the overall outcome of all of this is to create an underclass of second-class, third-class workers who are people of color, women, marginalized folks, disabled folks, LGBTQ+ folks.”
The past as a predictor. Educational institutions and employers may find a case study in California, which ended race-conscious affirmative action more than 25 years ago. Since then, the state’s most elite schools have become less racially diverse, and they’ve not been able to achieve their desired representation. This has directly impacted the earning and career potential of Black and Hispanic people in California.
“If you follow them into the labor market, for the subsequent 15 or 20 years, they’re earning about 5% lower wages than they would have earned if they’d had access to more selective universities under affirmative action,” Zachary Bleemer, an economist at Princeton University told NPR.
How employers move forward. John pointed to multiple McKinsey reports and analyses, which have found that companies with more gender and racial diversity consistently perform better than those with less. She said it’s important for companies to continue investing in a diverse workforce.
Zheng said workplaces should continue fostering inclusion, enforcing respectful language policies, and treating people fairly, so employees know that they’re going to be respected at work.
“The most important thing for workplaces to do is to staunchly defend their own integrity,” they said. “Regardless of what’s happening elsewhere, workplaces need to be a place where—if they have values, if they have rules, if they have processes—these things must be followed at all costs, no matter what, no exceptions.”