GAMBIER — U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance has issued a warning of a potential investigation into colleges and universities across the nation, including Kenyon College in Knox County, if they don’t follow the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down affirmative action.
The letter from the Ohio Republican, issued on July 6, was in response to the recent landmark decision in the case Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, which denies colleges from making decisions on applicants based on race.
In Vance’s letter, a quote was picked from Kenyon’s acting president Jeff Bowman, which noted the “transformative power of living, learning and working in a diverse community … the decision does not alter Kenyon’s mission or [its] commitment to access and inclusion.”
Vance’s letter asked Kenyon College, among other universities, “What procedures will your institution implement to ensure that records are retained in accordance with this letter?”
Knox Pages contacted Kenyon’s communications department for a comment via email on July 6. As of Monday at 1 p.m., Kenyon had not responded for comment on this story.
Vance’s letter also asks if the respective college staffs have ever been advised not to preserve records or to communicate internally in ways that could circumvent future inquiries, as well as what admissions practices previously employed by their institutions will now be forbidden.
With some colleges and universities noting the preservation of diversity, Vance asked, “If you have publicly committed to an interest in ‘diversity,’ how will you ensure that your commitment to that value does not entail direct or indirect race-based preferences?
“My colleagues have assured me that they share my concern that colleges and universities, and particularly the elite institutions to whom this letter is addressed, do not respect the Court’s judgment and will covertly defy a landmark civil rights decision with which they disagree,” Vance noted in his letter.
“I do not need to remind you of the ugly history of defiance and lawlessness that followed other landmark Supreme Court rulings demanding racial equality in education.”
Vance then referenced the U.S. Supreme Court landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, where the court found separating public school students based on race was unconstitutional.
“In one infamous case, Virginia Governor Thomas B. Stanley responded to the decision in Brown v. Board of Education by pledging to show ‘the rest of the country [that] racial integration is not going to be accepted in the South’ and by vowing to organize ‘massive resistance’ in the Southern States,” Vance wrote in the letter. “Violence and racial animosity ensued.”
Vance followed up with a second letter on Monday, July 10, stating he was putting the colleges, which also included Hiram in Ohio and a number of Ivy League institutions, on notice.
“The Supreme Court’s recent affirmative action ruling was a welcome step in the right direction after so many missteps by the Biden Administration this year,” Vance stated. “The hostility that came from so many colleges and universities in response to the highest court’s ruling was not.
“These ‘elite’ universities have told us they plan to violate the law and discriminate based on skin color. I advised these colleges that there WILL be consequences for doing so. They need to outline the changes they will be making to their admissions processes to respect the decision of the court.
“For too long, the Left’s institutions have run roughshod over basic American values fear of consequence, regardless of how their actions hurt the American people. I’m standing up and saying enough is enough. That stops now! Whether or not these radicals agree with the court’s decision, they must respect it.”
