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| By Bianca Quilantan |
With help from Rishika Dugyala, Marissa Martinez, Nancy Vu and Teresa Wiltz
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A view of the campus of Harvard University on July 8, 2020 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. | Maddie Meyer/Getty Images |
Hello, Recast family! Rudy Giuliani is the target of a Trump election probe in Georgia, a Pennsylvania man is charged with threatening the FBI in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago search and it's primary day in Wyoming — which means Liz Cheney will soon know if she's out of a job. But first, we're taking a deep dive into the fate of affirmative action at our nation's universities. The Supreme Court is slated to hear a case in October that is widely expected to overhaul the way colleges have considered race in admissions decisions for decades. The Students for Fair Admissions' lawsuits against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are perhaps higher education's most-watched legal challenges. SFFA's cases — one against a private institution and the latter against a public one — are urging the high court to overturn its ruling in a landmark case Grutter v. Bollinger — that has shaped college admissions policies for nearly two decades. The anti-affirmative action group wants to erase race from college admissions. Admissions counselors are charting a path around that. SFFA argues that race-conscious policies put white and Asian American students at a disadvantage. "The easiest part of my job as president of Students For Fair Admissions is to convince the majority Americans that the use of race and ethnicity in college admissions is unfair," SFFA President Edward Blum told POLITICO in a 2019 interview, noting a Pew Research survey that found 73 percent of Americans "say colleges and universities should not consider race or ethnicity when making decisions about student admissions." (Blum did not respond to the Recast's request for comment in time for publication.)
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Abigail Fisher, the Texan involved in the University of Texas affirmative action case, and Edward Blum, who runs a group working to end affirmative action, walk outside the Supreme Court in October 2012. | AP Photo/Susan Walsh |
Education and civil rights advocacy groups, however, say banning the use of race altogether will exacerbate inequality for students of color for years to come. A race-blind admissions standard, they say, fails to take into account discrimination and barriers Black and brown students often face. Blum and his group have spent more than a decade suing colleges over their admissions policies, with the hopes it'll land at the Supreme Court. But this time it's different. The high court has consistently ruled the narrow use of race furthers a compelling interest in educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body. But that was before then-President Donald Trump cemented a conservative majority on the Supreme Court bench. Only Justice Sonia Sotomayor has ruled in favor of narrowly using race in admissions decisions. Justice Elena Kagan is likely to join Sotomayor. And Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will be able to participate only in the case against UNC.
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Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan (left) and Sonia Sotomayor visit the Capitol Rotunda in January. | Oliver Contreras-Pool/Getty Images |
Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, have dissented against the use of race in admissions. Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett have not yet ruled on a case involving race in admissions, but it takes only two of them to hand SFFA a long-awaited victory. Already, college admissions counselors are brainstorming ways to preserve diversity on campus — even if the check box for race is erased from their college applications. Angel Pérez , CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, calls the strategy "widening the funnel." There are ways around specifically using a check box for race, he said, adding that the future of diversity on campus could heavily rely on strong recruitment and a student's ZIP code. "If the court said you can't use race, what it means is that that box is probably going to go away," he said. "But it doesn't mean that colleges and universities will not be making some pretty educated guesses around the students' backgrounds." "It's not as black and white as it seems," he said.
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People walk through The Quad at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in August 2020 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. | Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images |
While colleges might not know the race and ethnicity of a student, Pérez said, admissions counselors can tell when students come from low-income neighborhoods or where communities of color are residing through geographic census data. So college admissions recruiters will know where to find these students, according to Pérez. That means extending recruitment efforts beyond a college fair in the high school gym, targeting churches and other gathering spots where students can be found on the weekends. "A lot of this is going to focus on diversifying the top of the funnel so you get as many students of color into the pool," he said. "So that even if you can't take race into consideration, your pool is as diverse as possible." No matter what the Supreme Court ultimately decides, Pérez said, the process may never be solely based on merit, test scores or grades. That's because college admissions counselors are trained to understand that not every student "starts from the same starting line." He added:
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As always, we'll be watching to see how this plays out. All the best,
The Recast
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Power dynamics are changing. With The Recast, you'll get a twice-weekly breakdown of how race and identity are the DNA of American politics and policy. Was this forwarded to you by a friend? Subscribe to the newsletter here.
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TWO GOP WOMEN FACE THEIR FUTURES Liz Cheney and Sarah Palin are two women who represent very important components of the Republican Party's past. But today's elections will determine if they have a spot in the party's next chapter, writes POLITICO's Zach Montellaro. Both Cheney and Palin have seen their careers redefined by former President Donald Trump in a big way: Cheney became one of his main Republican antagonists, while Palin's presence on the 2008 GOP ticket helped chart the grassroots takeover of the GOP that eventually led to Trump as president.
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Vice Chair Liz Cheney arrives as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack holds a hearing at the Capitol on July 21, 2022. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo |
Wyoming's Cheney is now a huge underdog, fighting for her own House seat in a primary battle against the Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman. That's potential good news for the former president, who made defeating Cheney a top priority since losing the 2020 election. If the congresswoman loses on Tuesday, as expected, it means just two of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump even have a shot of returning to Congress next year.
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U.S. House candidate and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speaks during a "Save America" rally at Alaska Airlines Center in July. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images |
Palin, meanwhile, is trying to return to elected office in a special election for Alaska's at-large House seat. Trump quickly endorsed her campaign, and she finished first in the all-party primary for the special election in June. But Alaska's unique new election system could complicate the former governor's comeback attempt. The special election will be the first Alaska race run under new rules, with all voters picking candidates in the same all-party primary and the top four candidates advancing to a ranked-choice general election. Read more from Zach here.
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THE NUMBERS GAME
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A flag, in Spanish, that says "I Vote" is attached to the window of a van at an event hosted by the Hispanic Federation to encourage voting in the Latino community Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020, in Kissimmee, Fla. The Hispanic Federation is a non-partisan organization. (AP Photo/John Raoux) | AP Photo/John Raoux |
For the first time, abortion has entered the top-five issues concerning Latino voters, according to a new poll from two Latino civil rights organizations which showed Democrats with a 2-to-1 edge in the chase for Latinos' midterm votes. More than 70 percent of respondents said the procedure should be legal regardless of their personal beliefs, according to the survey from Hispanic civil rights and advocacy group UnidosUS and civic engagement organization Mi Familia Vota, reports POLITICO's Marissa Martinez. A majority of respondents (77 percent) said they would probably vote or certainly vote in the upcoming November elections, and a little over half said they planned to vote for a Democratic House candidate in the midterms, while 22 percent said they would vote for a Republican and 21 percent said they were undecided. Respondents' top-ranked issues for elected officials to address were inflation, crime and gun violence, and jobs. More specifically, cost of living, gas prices and low pay were the most concerning to voters. Immigration reform and border security, the pandemic and reduced government spending were among the least prioritized issues by respondents.
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Demonstrators protest outside of the Supreme Court in May after POLITICO reported on a draft option that would overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case. | AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana |
Health care ranked fourth in terms of Latinos' political priorities. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, polling has varied on Latino attitudes toward abortion, particularly in communities with large Catholic populations. Though many Latinos do not personally agree with the procedure, a majority of survey respondents still said they support open access to abortion across the states. Less than a quarter of respondents said religious leaders should tell members which candidates and policies to back. "Abortion has become far more salient, and I would say that's just one of the more stunning findings of the poll," Gary Segura, president of BSP Research, said. Read more from Marissa here.
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THE EXCLUSIVE
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President Joe Biden departs the Oval Office and walks to Marine One on July 20, 2022. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images |
A report from the center-left watchdog group Accountable US found that President Joe Biden's female nominees and nominees of color took longer than their white male counterparts to be confirmed at various federal departments, reports POLITICO's Nancy Vu. They also reported that Biden's nominees generally took longer to get confirmed than recent administrations, along with lower confirmation rates than the last three presidents. Here's a breakdown: AT THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT The confirmation process was 60 percent faster for white nominees than nonwhite nominees. AT THE COMMERCE DEPARTMENT White nominees would receive hearings 20 days sooner than nonwhite nominees—and received confirmation votes 50 days sooner. AT THE ENERGY DEPARTMENT Male nominees were given confirmation hearings twice as quickly as female nominees, and were confirmed faster at an average of 46 days. AT THE INTERIOR DEPARTMENT Confirmation hearings for male nominees moved twice as fast in comparison with female nominees. According to the report, "The sole white male nominee received one of the fastest confirmations of any of Biden's nominees at 63 days, while multiple key female nominees have been waiting more than 200 days, and have yet to receive a confirmation vote." OVERALL Biden's nominations are moving at a slow crawl compared with past presidents.
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This is nearly three times longer than candidates appointed by Ronald Reagan and more than twice as long as George W. Bush's nominees. Biden also had a lower confirmation rate than Trump, with a rejection rate higher than the previous three presidents.
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THE RECAST RECOMMENDS POLITICO wants to hear from you: How are abortion laws affecting your access to health care? Have you been denied prescriptions, even if they're unrelated to abortion? Have you been denied emergency treatment for a pregnancy-related complication? Tell us here.
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A pharmacist counts out pills. | AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki |
In May, Diné composer Raven Chacon became the first Native American to win a Pulitzer Prize for music for "Voiceless Mass" – reflective of a trend of Indigenious American artists finally getting props for their creative work, from the culinary arts to literature to TV. Singer-songwriter Solange, sister of Queen B – and a trained dancer – is penning a ballet score. Salman Rushdie is off the ventilator and on the mend after a stabbing attack last week. Sadly, he's no stranger to threats on his life. Here's Rushdie's 2012 accounting of how he lived for years with a fatwa on his head. Paolo Londra and Ed Sheeran team up for "Noche de Novela."
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Guillermo del Toro just dropped a trailer about his new horror anthology series, "Cabinet of Curiosities, debuting in October. Prepare to be spooked. Waiting is a virtue, as Anitta tells Maluma in their new single, "El Que Espera."
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TikToks of the Day: Flower dudes are a thing now. Here's exhibit one :
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And exhibit two :
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