Vote Omari Crawford

The Wade Walker YMCA held a candle light vigil to recognize Breast Cancer 🎀 awareness and remember my cousin ❤️.

I participated in Avondale Elementary School's 5K which was dedicated to their late Physical Education Coach, Beth Breit. I enjoyed meeting and running with members of the Avondale Estates community. One of the participants called me, “Georgia’s fastest legislator.” After brief consideration, I accepted that title lol. Which legislator wants to race? Meet me in Avondale Estates next year!

Our Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action unfortunately overturns the 2003 landmark case, Grutter v. Bollinger.
 

In Grutter v. Bollinger, our Supreme Court held that the use of race in the University of Michigan’s Law School admissions decisions was legal. The university created the policy to admit more minorities, but in America, polices implemented to assist Black people who have endured 400 years of disenfranchisement, will likely be challenged. After the policy was challenged, the Court stated, that if undergraduate and graduate institutions are not open to all individuals and broadly inclusive to our diverse community, then the top jobs, graduate schools, and the professions will be closed to some. The Court added that public universities have substantial latitude to tackle racial problems and ensure that our institutions are open to all, so that student bodies are representative of the public.

Y’all, Grutter v. Bollinger was a 2003 case!

Today, our Supreme Court has apparently decided that 20 years of admissions “assistance” for Black students, following centuries of legal exclusion from public universities was enough.

I appreciate Justice Jackson’s dissenting opinion in today’s decision. She stated, “deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life…no one benefits from ignorance. Although formal race-linked legal barriers are gone, race still matters to the lived experiences of all Americans in innumerable ways, and today's ruling makes things worse, not better. If the colleges of this country are required to ignore a thing that matters, it will not just go away. It will take longer for racism to leave us. And ultimately, ignoring race just makes it matter more.”

Bottom line: Education is the tool used to solve the world’s problems, but socioeconomic factors (which are linked to discrimination) impact education. Anyone with a brain understands that, so policies must be created to address past and present inequalities. We cannot solve the world’s problems if there is no diversity in our classrooms.

This decision just created yet another challenge for Black people and ultimately sets our country back.