Likely before the end of this week, the Supreme Court will release a major decision on affirmative action in college admissions, potentially putting an end to race-conscious admissions processes across the country and upending 20 years of precedent. The court combined two cases on the issue, one against the University of North Carolina and another against Harvard, and is considering them in tandem. Both cases were brought by conservative activists with the goal of ending the explicit consideration of race as colleges assemble their student body. During arguments last October, the court’s Republican-appointed justices signaled a willingness to do just that. Ahead of the expected ruling, which could come as soon as this morning, Nicholas talked with veteran teacher and Harvard alum Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), who sits on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and is one of a handful of former teachers serving in Congress. Beyond his committee assignment and classroom tenure, during which California voters rejected affirmative action in their state, Takano was also an elected board member of the Riverside Community College District Board of Trustees. Huddle’s conversation with Takano has been edited for length and clarity. Huddle also reached out to multiple Republican lawmakers with backgrounds in education for similar interviews but received no responses. Q: What are you watching for at the court? A: I'm watching to see whether or not this court completely takes away any kind of consideration of race, in admissions, and college admissions, whether or not that can be a factor in admissions. As someone who attended Harvard College, I will say straight out that I don't believe that I had the top test scores. I had really good grades, but I wasn't somebody who was scoring in the eight hundreds or the seven hundreds at all. And I believe that I was a beneficiary of the principles of affirmative action. And I believe that it was a good thing. So I believe that it's important for elite colleges to be able to take into account race as a factor, but it cannot be the sole factor or necessarily the deciding factor. Q: How’d you talk about the issue when you were a teacher? A: I taught mostly Latinos and African Americans. And I told them that I believe that when you consider somebody coming from maybe a first-generation family, to be able to be in a position to go to college, that you come from a low-income community, that you may not have the highest test scores, but you've done well in school and your teachers can vouch for your abilities. That it's important to have people who have had extra hurdles, but yet have demonstrated an ability to perform academically. And that the whole picture, the whole portfolio of a student needs to be considered. It's important that we strive to have a diverse student body at our elite schools in the country. I was always on the lookout for somebody in my school setting that could fit that description. Q: What did affirmative action do for your students and what would it look like without? A: I was not teaching like the most elite of my students. I taught college-bound kids, students taking the A through G requirements for the University of California. But during my time teaching at Rialto high school, I don't remember anyone sort of applying for Stanford or Harvard or Yale, MIT. In the late 80s, I had responsibilities as a Harvard Alumni interviewer. I interviewed students for college and wrote up for us and recommended them to the admissions committee. As I recall, the committee of Harvard alums in the region of California, we had robust debates about how, what students that we would rank as our top sort of recommendations to the committee. Race certainly wasn’t the only factor that Harvard was looking at. They were looking at a broad array of attributes. That was part of our job was to sort of volunteer interviewers to sort of assess all that out – how much of it was sort of puffery that they put onto the application? Q: Affirmative action and the topic of racial considerations in admissions are often a tricky subject among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. How could the ruling affect AAPIs? A: Well, it's hard for me to know. The Asian American community has a lot of diversity within it. Depending what your national origin might be could also have a lot to do with the kind of economic opportunity path in the United States. To just say the ‘Asian community’ really doesn’t get at the complexity. And so when you’re an admissions officer or an admissions committee for an elite institution, if you're talking about someone from South Korea or a recent immigrant of say, China, there's a big cultural difference in terms of what you might have been how you might have been prepared to apply for college, from say, someone who's from Cambodia or Cambodian American. GOOD MORNING! Welcome to Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Thursday, June 29, where the wildfire smoke is back to make your eyes burn. Programming note: We’ll be off Monday and Tuesday for the Fourth of July but will be back in your inboxes on Wednesday July 5. CAN KEVIN BRIDGE THE GAP? — Can Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) bring ultraconservative antagonists and cautious centrists together to fund the government? His speakership may depend on it, Sarah and Jordain write this morning. Some McCarthy allies are worried that the same conservative cohort that the speaker has tried to please with lower spending levels may never back a spending deal that requires Senate Democrats’ votes and President Joe Biden’s signature. Related read: Federal debt to soar, CBO predicts, despite GOP-led spending standoff, from Tony Romm at The Washington Post JUNKING JUNK FEES — A top progressive group is gearing up for an August push to highlight President Joe Biden’s attempt to end “junk fees,” the extra charges often applied to travel, ticket and banking transactions. The president highlighted the effort in his Wednesday “Bidenomics” speech and liberal groups want to take the message on the road. “There's all these hidden fees, and people hate them,” said Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. His group is planning a series of August press conferences on the fees in coordination with House Democrats and the White House in congressional districts throughout the country. He added that “the net effect will be that this issue that is very popular, that most people haven't heard our side is fighting for, will get reported on” in local media markets.
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