With affirmative action gone, American universities could turn into White Gurukulas

The American Supreme Court judgment quashing affirmative action in colleges and universities has opened a new debate on whether racism in America is getting validated in larger civil society again.

Unless the well-educated elite component of the society is multi-racial, racist decisions in administrative structures will not change. Whatever changes had unfolded because of the new intellectual force that entered into various structures of the US administration from multi-cultural and multi-colour social bases, would they not limp back into 21st century racism?

Social justice walking backwards

The Supreme Court took a dangerous decision at a time when the multi-racial America is producing talent in every intellectual field, with which the whole world has been benefitting. The oppressed castes in India were inspired by the Black-Slave intellectualism.

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Mahatma Jyotirao Phule dedicated the first-ever written book on Shudra Indians —Gulamgiri — to the Black liberators. Dr BR Ambedkar, who learnt a lot from Black intellectualism, became a liberator of untouchables and worked out an Indian mode of affirmative action — reservations.

Even before the world has yet to become free of racism, America’s highest court blocked the difficult path of intellectual inclusion. This may inspire many anti-reservationists in India and abroad as the Dwija Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) are as anti-reservationists as those who live in India.

A social counter-revolution now is initiated from the highest court of America. The court’s judgment initiates an anti-social justice process. American political philosopher John Rawls gave a model by writing his famous book A Theory of Justice, which made the world think about social justice.

The global judicial institutions learnt a lot from the American Supreme Court and John Rawls. Now the American Supreme Court is moving backwards, by dismantling the idea of social justice.

Indian experience  

Given the history of two national political parties of India, the BJP and the Congress, who opposed reservations during the Mandal and the pre-Mandal times, the Indian reservation system would not have been accepted but for the Black empowerment example.

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Our courts too are waiting for the reversal of that policy in America. Now the future of our reservation system seems to be up in the air. Our Brown brothers and sisters love everything American — while chanting Hindu nationalism slogans. They love reversing the reservation system with a new phrase — caste-blind education in the interest of Hindus. The Dalit/OBCs/Adivasis do not even know what will be in store for them.

The often repeated RSS slogan that Hindu traditions should be respected is an indicator for keeping them outside Hindu priesthood and intellectual powerhouse. Dismantling the reservation system will be projected as part of that tradition. The US SC judgement will serve as an epithet.

In America in the post-civil war era, white racism got countered by producing black intellectuals from colleges and universities, who could construct a counter narrative to racism and influenced policies both at the federal and provincial administration levels. With that, along with America, the whole world benefitted.

The modern administrative structures require well educated and trained intellectuals from the universities. With advanced knowledge their courage and confidence would grow. That was what happened in America. Now the judiciary seems to have checkmated it. Quite sadly, of the two black judges (one man and one woman) in the court, the senior judge, Justice Clarence Thomas, went along with the Chief Justice, who has been an opponent of affirmative action for quite some time.

Black woman judge hits back

But Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court’s first black female justice, chimed: “With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces ‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.” This is true. Colour blind decisions in the court do not remove colour discrimination in the society that institutionalised colour — slavery for centuries.

Universities and colleges are meant to produce intellectuals who construct new theories and ideas that change human life for the better and by reducing social conflicts and civil wars. America realised this after suffering a civil war in the late nineteenth century. Abraham Lincoln made that possible.

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Ever since the affirmative action policy was adopted the American society has produced many black intellectuals who played a key role in changing the world. Where does the reversal take it now?

The problem of admission essay

The American colour students when applying to a college or university course do not fill columns like our reserved category. They write an essay about how their colour played a role in their social, economic and educational life. Their school grades, their social service service while being a student, including labour related work that they undertake while studying in the school count.

Even the rich whites or blacks or Latinos or Asians need to impress the elite educational institutions that they are hardworking, talented enough to get admission. They have to show their concern for poor, disadvantaged children and so on.

The blacks and Latinos get preferential treatment in universities like Harvard, Stanford and Yale, based on their essay which describes their experience with racial discrimination. The universities also take into account their family background, even though in terms of marks they may score less than the other candidates.

The US Supreme Court’s Anti-Preferential Treatment (APT) judgment is expected to cut down the black and Latino admissions by more than 50 per cent of their intake. In other words, the talent that was growing among the former slaves and labouring races will be reduced.

Caste-based reservation in India and race-based APT in the US are meant to include the historically excluded forces in the intellectual pool that the nations are trying to build in modern times. So far this has proved to be contributing to the growing new knowledge zones in the larger civil society with equally respectable citizenship rights. Both the new knowledge and social equality are complementary for human advancement.

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In India, caste played a role in negating the growth of the new talent pool. In the West, race-based slavery did the same. The Shape of the River — Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions (2000), a famous book by William G Brown and Derek Bok (both were top academics and administrators in the US), said that the American talent pool grew enormously after the APT system was put in place. This is true of the Indian experience. I myself am a product of the reservation system.

White Gurukulas

The consequences of the Supreme Court judgement would certainly be detrimental to the US knowledge power. Their elite universities are likely to become White Gurukulas where multi-cultural knowledge hybridisation is likely to stop. The historical Indian experience tells only that kind of negative story of the Brahmin Gurukula education system. Our ancient Gurukulas and the pre-reservation modern higher educational institutions have not produced great innovations. Since mobility of people from the production field to university was never allowed, caste-blind education continued for long. But it did not advance the Indian knowledge system.

In America too, if the best universities become White Gurukulas, knowledge production is likely to suffer. The most famous Harvard university may become an institute of Boston Brahmins. The race-blind admission system that the court has put in place may lead to a knowledge-blind system itself.

(The writer is former Director, Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad.)

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