Local students sound off on Supreme Court affirmative action decision
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- Students at NYU say that people's backgrounds matter.
Your race helps define you and tells your story and it's not right to ignore it completely in the college admissions process, they said.
Eyewitness News spoke to some students about why they think affirmative action and racial equity in higher education are important.
"I mean the world is very different now, however, we can't ignore history there is no way to measure it, this is one solution we have come up with. It's baseless if you can't find a way to measure it," said Rachelle Guy, an incoming NYU law student.
"What affirmative action does in a way is incorporate just an aspect of every individual self into the application process," said Usuhe Maston, a college student.
A Brooklyn high school teacher who recently had a discussion on affirmative action with her students shared her thoughts with Eyewitness News.
She says a lot of her students were against affirmative action because they said the system wasn't benefitting them anyway, and they still felt discriminated against.
"One of the things they pointed out a lot is that when they join colleges there are streams to get them into school, but based on the communities and access they had they didn't have a way to integrate them into the system. Because in the end they lost out because of it because getting them into school is not enough," said Sayra Rafiuzzaman, high school teacher.
So interestingly enough, Rafiuzzaman's students found the system was flawed either way. Though it is very likely that process of taking race into consideration in the college admissions process changes, the students we spoke with hope colleges still find a way to support diverse student bodies.
WATCH: NYU students sound-off on SCOTUS affirmative action decision
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