• DOI:10.1080/713845284
• Corpus ID: 146680966

A Critical Race Counterstory of Race, Racism, and Affirmative Action

@article{Solorzano2002ACR,
  title={A Critical Race Counterstory of Race, Racism, and Affirmative Action},
  author={Daniel Gilbert Solorzano and Tara J. Yosso},
  journal={Equity \& Excellence in Education},
  year={2002},
  volume={35},
  pages={155 - 168}
}

• D. Solorzano, Tara J. Yosso
• Published 1 May 2002
• Education
• Equity & Excellence in Education

We are entering yet another historical moment when American higher education is threatened with resegregation and the end of racebased affirmative action. After the passage of Proposition 209, the California Anti-Affirmative Action Initiative, African American, Latina/o, and Native American students experienced a proportional decline in admission to undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools. Given that this California pattern seems to be a national trend, the cumulative effect of the decline in admissions at public higher education institutions reduces the representation of people of color in leadership or professional service positions in U.S. society. Much of this move to resegregate U.S. higher education and end race-based affirmative action occurs under the banner of efforts to improve academic standards and quality. In order to place affirmative action programs in historical perspective, we must look at the landmark 1978 Regents of University of California v. Bakke lawsuit (Bakke). In this case, a White male applicant, Allen Bakke, was denied admission to the University of California (UC), Davis Medical School. Bakke filed a class action lawsuit arguing that UC Davis used race in its admissions to “set aside’’ 16 of its 100 slots for underrepresented minority students. In the Bakke case, the U.S. Supreme Court Justices came up with two 5-4 majority rulings on the use of race in admissions. In the first majority ruling, five Justices found that preferential racial quotas (i.e., set asides) in educational admissions violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. However, in a key dissent to this majority ruling, four Justices challenged the majority opinion and asserted that “where there is a need to overcome the effects of past racially discriminatory or exclusionary practices engaged in by a federally funded