Position Statement
NAACP Political Action Committee
Situation:
Recent groundbreaking decisions by the current Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has put Black people in America on notice that the free ride is over. The death of Affirmative Action means that major colleges and universities can once again base enrolment criteria on race, creed, and national origin. This decision will affect the next generation of Black & Brown people. We can expect college enrollment in prestigious intuitions to decline dramatically. Likewise, studies show that overall college enrolment will decrease. The average individual annual income is directly tied to the level of a person’s education. College graduate as a rule earn up to $30k more per year than a person with just a high
school diploma.
Another court decision that will have a greater adverse effect on our people verses the rest of the population is their decision to knock down President Biden’s order to forgive some student debt. As we all know, Black and Brown people carry a higher college student debt than our White counter parts.
These decisions have taken Black and Brown people back to the bad old days of the S0’s 60’s. Now more than at any point in our history, we need to unite in a plan of action to halt this assault on our rights.
Every right we currently have has been legislated to us. The Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Age Discrimination Act were all due to acts of Congress, as was the Affirmative Act. We now know that either the Supreme Court or Congress can take those rights away from us at any time.
Solution:
Since there is nothing, we can do about the Supreme Court’s decision to abolish Affirmative Action, we can hold the higher education institutions in our area accountable. We need to contact the Admissions Department of every college and university in our area to find out if they have a plan or policy in place to ensure that their enrollment process remains fair and impartial. We need to identify those institutions who have not made suitable plans to keep their enrollment process open and fair. We can then monitor those schools so that we can either assist them to achieve compliance or bring it to the attention of our constituency that the particular institution is practicing unfair enrollment practices.
We need to contact our elected officials in Washington letting them know that we their constituents implore them to come up with a bi-partisan plan to deal with student debt that both houses will
endorse. I propose that we initiate a petition, and have it signed by as many Wisconsinites as possible. We should enlist the aide of the other NAACP offices in the state.
We need to double down on our Town Hall meetings with our elected officials and hold them to task on these issues,
Rickey Townsell
Chairman Political Action Com.
NAACP
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