At the end of June, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of the plaintiff in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of  Harvard College (Harvard), effectively undoing affirmative action in higher ed. The court found race-based considerations in university admissions to be unconstitutional thereby overturning affirmative action in the application process. In conversations with friends and acquaintances in the aftermath of the court’s decision, I was surprised to find that many thought, given my firm belief in meritocracy, that I would applaud the ruling. I do not.

Now, I understand why some may have assumed my sympathies would lie with Students for Fair Admissions I have been and will continue to be an outspoken advocate for critical meritocracy. I am also someone who recognizes that progress is often piecemeal and uneven. However, while affirmative action would not be necessary in a perfectly meritocratic world, that is not the world we live in. And, although overturning affirmative action can be read as an uneven step toward a more meritocratic world, it is so uneven that it topples over any hope of true progress. In fact, ending affirmative action in the university admissions process without substantive changes to other key features of that process is anti-meritocratic. The court’s ruling further entrenches systemic inequities that obscure our assessments of our own merit and that of others, ultimately limiting the effective development and leveraging of ability.  This is because eliminating race-conscious admissions distorts the function of the tools we have to measure our ability and that of others, and for many, it prevents capacity and potential from being realized into ability.

A substantial portion of the debate in the run-up to and aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Harvard centered on identity—from the selection of the plaintiffs themselves to the bemoaning of identity politics both in the US and in my adoptive land on the other side of the pond. Critics and supporters of the ruling alike are right to highlight identity as a key factor. However, they’re right for (mostly) the wrong reasons.

Ability, what we can and cannot do, is at the nucleus of our identities. Sometimes this can/can’t intersects with race—the Jim Crow South is a glaring example—but in a just world it would not. In the world we live in race, gender, disability, and relative poverty all present barriers to access to the institutions where ability is nurtured, fostered, and sculpted— universities chief among them—and to the realization of ability itself.

Fundamentally we measure our ability against that of others reducing these barriers is not only the right thing to do from an orientation of justice but it is also the right thing to do from a self-interested objectivist perspective. This is because it is impossible to validate one’s internal identity and sense of one’s own ability as long as inequalities and illegitimate barriers to access exist.

This fact is also why many chafed at affirmative action in the first place. Affirmative action and scholarship including critical race theory which demonstrates the need for race consciousness, strike at the very ability-based identities of those who have succeeded in performance hierarchies. These programs and ideas say: ‘You might not be good as you think you are.’  They make plain the fact that many who have risen to positions of power and influence within their chosen organizations and fields have benefitted from a system that has excluded an enormous tranche of competition. In short, affirmative action causes many to feel threatened, often ignoring the greater threat of leaving talent that could be deployed against the world’s most pressing problems in the dust of inequity and injustice.

Further, many who were not admitted to top academic institutions bridle at compensatory measures like affirmative action in the admissions process, perceiving them as unjust. This is often the position of the Milton Freidman and Jordan Peterson crowds: all that matters are the numbers on the page, GPA, SAT; forget the rest.

This position is fundamentally unserious. Not only does it fly in the face of copious research demonstrating the link between both socioeconomic class and race, and academic “measurables,” particularly SAT scores. It also ignores the unjustifiable role of legacy in admissions at top-tier universities (to say nothing of faking fencing skills or donating buildings).

While the structural barriers to inclusion, the distortions of legacy admissions, and the chicanery of pay-to-play seats persist it is moral and necessary to have compensatory measures in place for students from diverse backgrounds. These must include the recognition that similar achievements may signify different degrees of merit when individuals’ backgrounds are taken into account. A white male from a wealthy background publishing ten peer-reviewed papers is impressive. A First Nations female from an economically disadvantaged background achieving the same feat, however, is a greater signifier of merit. The woman’s achievement demonstrates the tenacity, dedication, and ability within a given field to overcome structural barriers to inclusion. Lest I be misread, it is important to note that this fact does not represent a ceiling on the man’s ability or any estimation thereof. Rather, I am suggesting that the same signifiers create a higher floor for any estimation of the woman’s ability in this scenario.

Applied to the university acceptance process this might look something like the adversity score employed by UC Davis (though we should be careful not to stray too deeply into quantification). To achieve this balance, centering ability and merit while accounting for diversity, universities can take a cue from the Gates Scholar admissions process by centering admissions around three que questions: What are your abilities; how do you hope to apply your abilities in pursuit of your goals; and what adversities have you had to overcome?

To build a better world we must ensure that students from diverse backgrounds can access higher learning. This is both a moral and a practical imperative. Ensuring access, through broadening the talent pool, allows for the difficult work of identifying and measuring ability to be done—ultimately identifying the sharpest talents, grinding steel against steel to hone the mental blade at the cutting edge of science solving problems that threaten life and hold back the expansion of human ability. The Harvard decision further entrenches structural barriers to inclusion making it more difficult to collectively identify, sharpen, hone, and wield ability in serves of humanity. I do not applaud the Supreme Court’s ruling. I jeer it.