A call to action following the US Supreme Court affirmative action ruling

• Published in: The Lancet (British edition) Vol. 403; no. 10424; pp. 332 - 335
• Main Authors: Pereira, Rocio I, Diaz-Thomas, Alicia, Hinton, Jr, Antentor, Myers, Alyson K
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Limited 27-01-2024
• Subjects: Affirmative action; College admissions; Colleges & universities; Community colleges; Court decisions; Higher education; Historically Black Colleges & Universities; Humans; Learning; Multiculturalism & pluralism; Prejudice; Public Policy; Race; Schools; Students; Supreme Court Decisions; United States; Workforce; Workplace diversity; United States; United States > US
• ISSN: 0140-6736; 1474-547X; 1474-547X
• DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(23)02700-9

In June, 2023, overturning more than 40 years of precedent, the US Supreme Court ruled against the use of race as a factor in college admissions. Following this national ruling, we expect substantial drops in admission rates for URiMS students, similar to those seen in public universities after state-wide affirmative action bans were enacted.2 While it is easy to consider that the impacts of this ruling are isolated to the USA, about 25% of countries have affirmative action programmes,3 so this loss of affirmative action might have global effects as other countries could elect to follow suit. Agencies should continue to maintain accurate databases on the health-care workforce and provide easy access to projections based on protected characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, and self-reported gender, to schools and institutions of higher learning.