来源：《华盛顿邮报》
原文刊登日期：2023年6月29日
The Supreme Court on Thursday all but banned affirmative action at universities that accept federal funding, abandoning a half-century experiment in promoting campus diversity. The decision gutted 45 years of precedent without acknowledging that it was doing so.
周四，最高法院几乎禁止了接受联邦资助的大学采取平权行动，放弃了半个世纪以来促进校园多元化的实验。这一决定破坏了45年的先例，但最高法院却没有承认自己在破坏。
The ruling will not — and should not — end universities’ efforts to build student bodies that reflect the country, nor will it conclude the legal wrangling over such efforts. Rather, it is an invitation for potentially endless further litigation about whether admissions offices are following the rules the court has set down. Facing this prospect, universities will seek alternative admissions strategies. They have some options.
这项裁决不会——也不应该——终止大学建立反映国家的学生团体的努力，也不会结束围绕这类努力的法律纠纷。相反，这将进一步导致对大学招生办公室是否遵守最高法院制定的规则的潜在无休止的诉讼。面对这种前景，大学将寻求其他招生策略。它们有一些选择。
One potential response is eliminating “legacy” admissions policies that benefit the children of alumni. Another approach would be to step up outreach to well-qualified minority applicants. But institutions that have tried such methods, such as the University of Michigan, which state voters restricted from engaging in affirmative action in 2006, say they do not work.
一个可能的应对措施是取消有利于校友子女的“遗产”录取政策。另一种方法是加强与合格的少数族裔申请人的联系。但密歇根大学等尝试过这些方法的机构表示，这些方法并不奏效。2006年，密歇根州选民限制密歇根大学参与平权运动。
Some public universities have tried giving admissions preferences to all in-state applicants who graduate at or near the top of their high school classes. After California voters banned race-conscious admissions at public universities in their state, the University of California system used a version of this policy. Yale economist Zachary Bleemer found that the change boosted underrepresented minority enrollment only 4 percent, compared with 20 percent under previous affirmative action policies.
一些公立大学已经尝试对所有高中毕业成绩或接近前茅的州内申请者给予录取优先权。在加州选民禁止该州公立大学的种族意识招生后，加州大学系统使用了这一政策的一个变种。耶鲁大学经济学家扎卡里·布莱姆发现，这一变化仅使代表性不足的少数族裔入学人数增加了4%，而在之前的平权行动政策下，提升幅度为20%。
The court did not rule out considering students’ backgrounds and circumstances in holistic reviews of their profiles. Admissions officers can still give credit to applicants who have overcome challenges relating to their race or who would bring unique experiences to campus. Admissions essays, recommendations and other application material can paint a compelling portrait of an individual applicant without assigning specific values to race. Mr. Bleemer found that holistic review policies increased underrepresented minority enrollment by about 7 percent.
最高法院没有禁止在全面审查学生简历时考虑学生的背景和情况。招生官员仍然可以认可那些克服了与种族有关的挑战或将为校园带来独特经历的申请人。招生论文、推荐信和其他申请材料可以在不赋予特定种族价值的情况下，描绘出一幅引人注目的个人申请人肖像。布莱姆发现，整体审查政策使代表性不足的少数族裔入学人数增加了约7%。
The most promising approach is giving a boost to applicants with low or no family wealth, an approach that Melvin L. Oliver, a former president of Pitzer College, favors. This would enhance socioeconomic diversity on campus, a good in its own right. The racial wealth gap is even larger than the racial income gap, so using wealth as an admissions factor would tend to help Black and Latino applicants — and to reward students who achieved despite difficult circumstances.
最有希望的方法是为家庭财富较低或没有家庭财富的申请人提供支持，这是皮策学院前校长梅尔文·奥利弗所支持的方法。这将增强校园内社会经济的多样性，这本身就是一件好事。种族贫富差距甚至比种族收入差距更大，因此将财富作为录取因素往往会帮助黑人和拉丁裔申请人，并奖励那些在困难环境下取得成就的学生。
Writing in 1978, when the court first upheld race-conscious university admissions, Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. noted that “the nation’s future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to the ideas and conventions of students as diverse as this Nation of many peoples.” Campus diversity exists for the benefit of all students, not just those from underrepresented groups. That principle was the right one then, and it still is.
大法官小刘易斯·鲍威尔在1978年最高法院首次支持有种族意识的大学录取时写道，“美国的未来取决于通过广泛接触学生的思想和习俗而培养出来的领导人，这些学生和这个由许多民族组成的国家一样多样化。”校园多样性的存在是为了所有学生的利益，而不仅仅是那些来自代表性不足群体的学生。这一原则在当时是正确的，现在也正确。