In a recent statement, Attorney General Jeff Sessions delineated the administration's new guidelines on the matter, explaining that they aim to undo the state-sponsored policies of discrimination imposed by Obama in order to promote "diversity" in education.
The Department of Education (DOE), in conjunction with the Department of Justice (DOJ), is basically advising schools to base their admissions standards on factors like merit and character, rather than skin color, which will naturally draw in a diverse grouping of students.
These proposed changes come in response to an ongoing lawsuit against Harvard University, which alleges that the Ivy League has been unfairly discriminating against Asians in order to admit more blacks and other racial minorities.
"When issuing regulations, federal agencies must abide by constitutional principles and follow the rules set forth by Congress and the President," Sessions stated in an announcement, referring to Obama-issued guidelines that the Trump administration says are in violation of what the Supreme Court has already ruled.
Documents issued by the Obama administration both in 2011 and 2016 go far beyond what the law allows, the Trump administration claims. They also mislead schools into believing that legal forms of affirmative action are somehow simpler to achieve than what's legally provisioned under the law.
"In previous administrations, however, agencies often tried to impose new rules on the American people without any public notice or comment period, simply by sending a letter or posting a guidance document on a website. That's wrong, and it's not good government," Sessions added.
Civil rights enforcer in DOJ under Obama immediately pulls race card following news
Immediately following news of the new recommendations, Obama DOJ appointee Anurima Bargava, who was in charge of enforcing civil rights in schools under Obama, issued her own statement of disapproval concerning the new guidelines.
Hardly surprising was Bargava's pulling of the race card in claiming that the Supreme Court has ruled twice in "reaffirming the importance of diversity" in education.
"This is a purely political attack that benefits nobody," she stated to the media.
But if the current legal filings against Harvard are any indication, they would seem to suggest that Asians and whites alike will both benefit from this alleged "attack." The only ones who won't benefit are those who've gotten used to being treated like academic superstars simply because of their ethnic heritage.
And while the Supreme Court has, in fact, ruled in favor of affirmative action policies, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who recently announced his retirement from the bench, once stated otherwise concerning their future in American education.
He argued that institutions of higher learning need to continually review their affirmative action policies in order to assess both their positive and negative effects, which is exactly what the Trump administration is right now encouraging them to do.
This seems more likely than ever as President Trump considers a replacement for Justice Kennedy – one who will more than likely lean to the right as opposed to the left.
More than that, there are also other ways to bring in a more diverse student body that don't involve actively discriminating against Asians and whites, which appears to have become the norm on many college campuses. These include considering applicants' socioeconomic backgrounds, eliminating early admissions programs, and increasing community college transfers.
Schools could also better consider the "personal" scores that they assign to prospective students, which gauge the character of applicants. Data consistently shows that Asians score the lowest on these personal tests compared to people of other ethnicities, suggesting the need for a more balanced admissions approach.
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