The fate of affirmative action currently lays in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court following Wednesday’s oral arguments on whether 25-year-old Abigail Fisher was denied admission to the University of Texas because of her race.

Fisher’s case is both contentious and misplaced. Affirmative action is a corrective measure to how opportunities are foreclosed to people through institutional discriminatory policies. And the measure’s greatest beneficiaries over the past 50 years, have been white women. To blame minority students for her rejection, which, based on the facts that she did not meet basic admissions standards, is racial scapegoating.

As a reminder of how oppression actually exists in the world, watch this video:

 

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Author

  • Victoria M. Massie is a freelance writer and anthropologist who is currently the Staff Writer for Black Youth Project. Her work focuses on feminism, politics, science, and diaspora, but, more often than not, she spends her time obsessing about ideas of "home." She is a National Science Foundation fellow and a Lifetime Member of the West African Research Association.