ESPN host Stephen A. Smith spoke out against the Supreme Court ending affirmative action in college admissions, arguing the African American community did not have an "unfair advantage" over other minority groups.
Smith said race was one of many considerations that colleges took into account when deciding whether to admit a student, but it wasn’t the sole determining factor.
He told "Fox News Tonight" that affirmative action was an "effort to even the playing scales to some degree because of the inequities exacted against the African American community in this country."
"It wasn't about giving them an advantage. It was about highlighting the fact that they were discriminated [against], meaning we were discriminated against at that particular moment in time. And that's why the policy was instituted to begin with," Smith argued.
The Supreme Court struck down the decades-old practice of allowing race to be considered in college admissions by a vote of 6-3. Students for Fair Admissions, the group that brought the case against Harvard and the University of North Carolina, praised the decision, saying it "marks the beginning of the restoration of the colorblind legal covenant that binds together our multi-racial, multi-ethnic nation."
"The polarizing, stigmatizing and unfair jurisprudence that allowed colleges and universities to use a student’s race and ethnicity as a factor to admit or reject them has been overruled. These discriminatory admission practices undermined the integrity of our country’s civil rights laws," a press release from the organization read in part.
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Smith explained that affirmative action was implemented in the first place because African Americans were being "shortchanged." "They were being denied the same privileges, or the same opportunities, that were accorded to White folks," he argued.
Host Will Cain pushed back on the argument, saying the country won’t solve past discrimination by implementing present and future discrimination.
"In Harvard, in the situation at Harvard, an African American student in the top 50% of his academic class, Stephan A, had just as good a chance as an Asian student or a White student in the top 10% of their class. Is that just? Is that just discrimination?" Cain asked.
"No," Smith responded. "You didn't hear me speak against, you know, anyone from the Asian community that brought that case to the justices. I understood where they were coming from. My argument was against folks in White America that would say even, you know, presidential candidate Donald Trump talking about now we get back to a merit, you know, a society based on merit, ignoring what brought affirmative action policies into play to begin with," he explained.
"We have people in White America acting as if they don't know how it came about."
Cain pointed out that the Supreme Court believed there would be a day in the future when affirmative action wouldn’t be required.
"When do we stop discriminating on the basis of race?" he asked.
"When people in positions of power have proven that they're exercising fairness come hell or high water. It's really, really that simple," Smith answered.
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The ESPN host continued, adding that the power structure in the United States is "still predominantly White." "And so as a result, what White America is asking you to do is ultimately to trust that your heart is going to be in the right place. And there are a plethora of people throughout minority communities in this country who would challenge that and would say, ‘No, we don't necessarily believe that to be the case, which is why we need the laws to help us,’" Smith said.
He pointed to the "Rooney Rule" in the NFL which aims to increase the number of minorities in the league’s head coach, general manager and executive positions.
"Why is the Rooney Rule still in existence? Because we've seen one opportunity after another after another where capable, qualified Black individuals were bypassed because of the system that was in place, primarily won by White individuals who asked us to trust them, but then proved they weren't worthy of the trust that they requested. And so those are the kind of challenges we have to deal with as a country, and there's just no way around that," Smith argued.
"The only way we can make it better is people like yourself and myself talking about it honestly and openly."
