Marisa Demeo
Colleges and universities that use race-conscious admissions have made those universities a better place for everyone to learn-all students, minority students, white students. And they have prepared our future leaders for the military, for the business and for the policymakers in our society.
Campuses are definitely richer environments because of the diversity on them today than they were, say 30-40 and 50 years ago. It used to be an all white male learning environment. Now we have women, now we have minorities and that makes it a better place to learn about how to lead our country, which is a diverse environment.
If the Supreme Court says that affirmative action is still valid, that race can still be used as a method to select people for admission, but says the University of Michigans program itself doesn't work for the Constitution, what we have is a mixed decision.
They got it right as far as we still need to use race. They got it wrong to say that University of Michigan's program wasnt narrow enough. University of Michigan's program was a very narrowly tailored program to really make a diverse student environment.
I work for an organization called Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, MALDEF, and we are the national latino civil rights organization. We are involved in the University of Michigan case both in the litigation in the courts, but also on the policy and media side, getting out the message that affirmative action is still needed today to make our society better.
My name is Marisa Demeo. I am a Latina and I went to Princeton University.
