Sea Change Radio: Rod Graham: The Fight Over Affirmative Action, Segment 1

Back in 2016 the US Supreme Court established that the University of Texas could continue to consider race as a factor in admissions, in order to ensure a diverse student body. At that time Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg declared, "I don’t expect that we’re going to see another affirmative action case, at least in education." But Justice Ginsburg hadn't anticipated the current Court and its appetite for re-examining established law. Later this year the Court will hear challenges to affirmative action at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. Given the right-leaning makeup of this Court, the decision may well deliver a major blow to affirmative action at this country's institutions of higher learning. This week on Sea Change Radio, we discuss the state of affirmative action with Prof. Rod Graham, a sociologist at Old Dominion University. We look at the recent history of racial preference in educational policies, talk about why it would be a mistake to abandon affirmative action, and ponder the impact that such a decision could have on legacy preference in school admissions.