On June 29, the Supreme Court ruled on Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard and SFFA v. University of North Carolina (UNC), declaring that the consideration of race and ethnicity in admissions was unconstitutional and striking down race-based affirmative action. 

SFFA is led by Edward Blum, a conservative legal strategist. Blum argued that race-based affirmative action had unfairly discriminated against Asian American applicants, centering Asian Americans in a nationwide debate about diversity and fairness in college admissions. 

Now deep into the first admissions cycle following the Supreme Court decisions, uncertainty remains over the potential decline in minority enrollment at selective colleges. 

In the second episode of “People, Politics, and Perspective,” listen as host Elaine Jiang speaks with Sally Chen, the education equity program manager at Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA), a civil rights advocacy organization focused on defending the interests of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. Jiang and Chen discuss the ruling, misconceptions about affirmative action, and the importance of diversity in combatting the history of segregation in America. 

The music in this episode is courtesy of Rachel Alcazar. The sound effect was made by graham_makes and published on FreeSound under a CC by 4.0 license.