'Hochul, NY public universities vow push for diversity despite Supreme Court ruling'

 Gov. Kathy Hochul and other New York officials vowed Thursday to continue efforts to boost minority students’ access to the state’s colleges and universities despite the Supreme Court’s decision to ban race-based admissions.

In 6-3 affirmative action opinion, the nation’s highest court decided that using race as factor in college admissions violates Constitution’s 14th Amendment

“This is a dark day for equality and democracy,” Hochul said shortly after the decision by the nation’s top jurists was released.

But she said had already spoken to State University of New York Chancellor John King about the goal to admit more historically underrepresented students at its 64 campuses.

“Diversity is an important part of who we are,” Hochul said. “We want to make sure that New York is a place that celebrates diversity and inclusion.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul vowed on Thursday to continue efforts to boost access to minority students’ access to the state’s colleges and universities.

Paul Martinka

King and SUNY’s board of trustees, in a joint statement, blasted the SCOTUS ruling for pulling “our nation backward in the journey toward equity and civil rights” but said it will push to bolster minority admissions “within the law.”

“Race-conscious admissions policies have enriched our institutions and our nation. Yet despite the existence of race-conscious admissions policies, Black and Latino students, along with other groups, are still underrepresented across institutions of higher education as students, faculty members and administrators,” the SUNY brass said.

While the rulings in the related cases, Students for Fair Admissions vs Harvard University and vs University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said colleges can’t explicitly use race and ethnicity as a preference in admissions, “we can use life experience as a factor,” SUNY Board Chairwoman Merryl Tisch told The Post.

Hochul’s promise of diversity comes after the Supreme Court’s decision to ban race-based admissions.

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A student’s race would certainly be part of life experience along with other considerations as Chief Justice Roberts mentioned in his majority ruling.

SUNY has come under fire from conservatives for pushing race-based  “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice” programs, who’ve branded it “Woke U.” Discrimination complaints have been filed against SUNY’s Albany campus and Buffalo Law School for promoting racial preference programs for non-white students.

SUNY’s 64-campus study body combined is 53% white and 47% non-white combined including Black, Hispanic and Asian.

The leadership at the City University of New York said the ruling won’t impact its 25 campuses because 54% of its student body is already African-American Hispanic combined, 22% Asians and 24% white.

“CUNY as a system doesn’t depend on race-conscious admissions but as it is with any court ruling that affects higher education, we are carefully reviewing today’s decision and its impact, if any, on our admission practices,” a spokesperson said.

Some New York Asian-American education advocacy groups applauded the ruling, saying race-based preferences hurt high-performing, college-bound Asian-American students. 

“We are thankful that the Supreme Court has finally ruled against decades of pernicious discrimination against Asian American students. Colleges have abused Affirmative Action for too long,” said a joint statement released by the Asian Wave Alliance, Chinese-American Citizen Alliance of Greater NY, NYC Residents Alliance and Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education (PLACE NYC).

“Discrimination by group identity is unconstitutional, un-American, and immoral. We call upon universities to comply with the law and stop in good faith to discriminate by race.”

https://nypost.com/2023/06/29/gov-kathy-hochul-ny-public-universities-vow-push-for-diversity-despite-supreme-court-ruling/