Indian-American woman supporting affirmative action lawsuit against Harvard, UNC terms US Supreme Court ruling as historic

An Indian-American woman, who fought against discrimination against Asians in colleges and universities in this country, has described the US Supreme Court ruling to strike down affirmative action as "historic".

Manga Anantatmula stood strong alongside Edward Blum of Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) and as a board member of Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) since 2015 in the lawsuit against Asian discrimination.

Anantatmula relentlessly represented the Indian community presenting discriminatory policies of Harvard University and the University of North Carolina to the Department of Education and the Trump Administration to bring justice to Asian students, a press release said.

Anantatmula thanked Blum and Yukong Zhao for roping her into this effort in 2015, "which was a turning point of my life fighting for the civil rights of Asians leading to this historic ruling against affirmative action in the admissions process." Anantatmula, who is a Republican and ran for the US Congress in 2020 from Virginia, said that affirmative action policies were ignored for several decades. The court's ruling is an affirmation of the fundamental principle of equality of all races. She added that "as the only Indian-American woman in the case, I still wonder why the Legacy Admissions or the Affirmative Action for the privileged is untouched and still exists? It's time for legacy admissions to be abolished and no more reservation for the privileged class".

She added that legacy admissions constitute 36 per cent of the admissions.

Anantatmula noted that the US Supreme Court issued a historic ruling against Affirmative Action of race in college admissions.

The court concluded that Harvard and the University of North Carolina's race-conscious admissions programs failed to abide by the narrow restrictions laid out by the court in previous cases, emphasised that university programmes "must comply with strict scrutiny, may never use race as a stereotype or negative, and must – at some point – end".

In the landmark 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court on Thursday ended race-conscious college admissions across the US, with President Joe Biden saying he "strongly" disagrees with the Court's decision.

Biden said that many people "wrongly believe" that affirmative action allows unqualified students to be admitted ahead of qualified students.

"This is not -- this is not how college admissions work." Asserting that one of the greatest strengths of America is its diversity, Biden said the nation's colleges are stronger when they are racially diverse.

He added that he is directing the Department of Education to analyze what practices help build a more inclusive and diverse student body and what practices hold that back, practices like legacy admissions and other systems that expand privilege instead of opportunity.

Anantatmula, however, warned the Asian community that "our fight is not over yet.

On a historic day, the Asians were handed a huge victory against Affirmative Action, President Joe Biden expressed his displeasure over the Supreme Court ruling; he said he was considering executive action and will ask the Department of Education to look into ways to maintain diversity in university student bodies." Anantatmula said that the President favours other minority groups over Asians making it the darkest day for America and its constitution for not upholding equality of all races.

The National Federation of Indian American Associations (NFIA) was listed as Amicus Curiae along with Asian American organizations including GOPIO in this campaign which apparently will reward justifiably and proportionately the Indian American students in American, especially Ivy League colleges for their par excellence academic performances in future! "The court decision rejecting affirmative action in the American colleges is timely and we at NFIA are naturally elated," President of NFIA Raj Razdan said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)