Right-wing media are using the end of affirmative action to call for measures that would chip away at America’s public school system. 

On June 29, the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to end race-conscious admissions programs at colleges and universities. Right-wing figures and outlets largely celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision, claiming that the policy was discriminatory against white and Asian applicants. The end of affirmative action falls in line with the right’s efforts to dismantle the American public school system, including the push to defund government education and instead invest in private school vouchers in their crusade against “woke” public school curriculums. The group of policies referred to by the right as “school choice” not only fails to improve educational outcomes — it’s also a policy that, as writer Wajahat Ali explains, is “all about entrenching right-wing power, control, and Christian nationalism.” 

School privatization clearly undermines the public education system, but this has not stopped right-wing commentators from using the Supreme Court’s decision to argue for the policy: 

• On Hannity, Sean Hannity and guest author John Yoo argued for school choice as the best option for minority groups. Hannity claimed, “I know the Republican party wants school choice. They want charter schools. They want parental involvement. And they prefer to stick with reading, writing, math, science, history and computers and stay away from gender identity, a value system that contradicts theirs, CRT, et cetera.” Yoo responded, “The answer to this humiliation we are suffering in the inner city schools is choice.” [Fox News, Hannity, 6/29/23]
• On Fox News Tonight, Lawrence Jones claimed that Democrats want to “hold America back” by supporting affirmative action and opposing school choice. He explained, “systemic progressivism is when Democrats let our kids languish in schools, failing to learn how to read or write. Yet they oppose school choice and they oppose it for one simple reason: the teachers unions.” [Fox News, Fox News Tonight, 6/29/23]
• On America’s Newsroom, former George W. Bush speech writer Marc Thiessen claimed that teachers unions won’t let Black parents “have the same choices that affluent white parents have to choose their schools.” He also stated, “Affirmative action was the wrong solution. But we have a major problem in this country of racial disparities in education, particularly in secondary school and elementary school. …. We have to lift Black and Hispanic kids up … by creating opportunities and improving the education system.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 7/3/23]
• Thiessen made a similar claim on The Faulkner Focus: “If you want to really redress the racial inequities and make sure we have more Black and Hispanic kids who can make it into college and succeed in college we need school choice.” He continued, “Conservatives need to now, after this victory, they need to turn around and double down their efforts. And they've been doing it. I mean, Iowa’s doing it, Florida’s doing it. We really need to double down as a movement on school choice so we can help Black and Hispanic kids get into college and succeed there.” [Fox News, Faulkner Focus, 6/30/23]
• Mark Levin claimed on his radio show that “white intellectuals” oppose “school choice for little Black kids.” He ranted, “They want government schools. Nothing more, nothing less. Doesn't matter if test scores are going down the toilet. Doesn't matter if little kids are going to school or facing criminalization and other horrific things when they get there? Doesn't matter. No school choice, but yes, racial discrimination and re-segregating America.” [Levin Radio, 6/29/23]
• When asked by Fox News’ Martha MacCallum about the decision, Lieutenant Governor of Virginia Winsome Earle-Sears instead turned to the privatization of education and claimed that “our children are in need” and proposed school choice as a “remedy.” She also took the opportunity to attack Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson, stating that she was appointed “because she’s Black and because she’s a woman.” MacCallum failed to push back on Earle-Sears claims.[Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 6/29/23]
• The Heritage Foundation’s Roger Severino claimed on America’s Newsroom that “you need to break the monopoly of government schools” and that school choice provides “equal footing” for disadvantaged students. In talking about the end of affirmative action, Severino said, “There are huge disparities in educational outcomes and I think the best solution to that is you get it early and you need school choice. You need to break the monopoly of the government schools, you need to hold them accountable when they fail. You need to give students who are poor money so that they can be on equal footing of those of higher means and that's what vouchers and school choice provides.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 6/29/23]
• Newsmax’s John Burnett claimed that “I look at public school systems as like a plantation. I look at school choice as the underground railroad.” He also said, “You can't fix discrimination with discrimination. We understand that. However, this is a perfect opportunity to push school choice, right? Because if a person is behind the eightball K through 12, of course when you get to higher learning, you’re already three steps behind. And when you look at the public school system around this nation, many people in urban areas do not get the type of training, the type of education that sets them on the track to success.” [Newsmax, Wake Up America, 7/3/23]
• School choice advocate Clara Del Villar appeared on Newsmax to push for the policy: “This is 2023, the left is outraged about an affirmative action decision, yet they don't do anything about school choice.” She added that the left “refuse[s] to acknowledge that that's the critical issue when children of diverse backgrounds are suffering in reading and math and the skills they need to succeed. So this faux outrage to me is ridiculous.” [Newsmax, Sunday Report, 7/2/23]
• When asked about the decision, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos claimed, without pushback, that many minority students “don’t have the opportunity to make choices for their K-12 education” and that “how you fix that problem in the long-term, is freeing up the K-12 education system to do just that.” She also said that “the court did the right thing in really affirming what the constitution says. That discrimination of any kind is against the constitutional provisions.” [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 6/30/23]
• Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI) said on Mornings with Maria Bartiromo that “this may be the opportunity to finally go in and drive forward in particular with school choice policies.” “I think Justice Roberts said it right, if you want to have a society that is not based on race, well, then, don't base policies on race. I think this is an opportunity again to address the root causes. … It’s the radical left that fights against school choice, that wants to lock children into failing school systems and then again they’ve looked to affirmative action and other policies to fix it on the backend.” Right-wing activist Cherise Trump agreed with him, and Bartiromo did not push back on either guest. [Fox News, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 6/30/23]
• Conservative judicial activist Mike Davis told Newsmax’s John Bachman that “if Democrats actually cared about racial equality in this country, they would stop caving to the teachers unions and support K through 12 educational opportunities.” He then turned on former President Barack Obama, arguing, “Why should Barack Obama, who's complaining today about affirmative action, be the only Black person in D.C. who gets to send his kids to an elite Ivy?” [Newsmax, John Bachman Now, 6/29/23]
• Right-wing personality Tomi Lahren responded to a tweet claiming that regardless of affirmative action we should invest more in early childhood education with, “Well, democrats are adamantly opposed to school choice!!” [Twitter, 6/29/23]
• Erika Donalds, school choice advocate and wife of Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fl), spoke to host Lauren Simonetti on Fox News Radio to advocate for school choice. She claimed that “liberals like to use things like affirmative action and quotas to cover up that they are not providing equal opportunities, especially in our K-12 system, for students to achieve and get into these higher elite colleges based on their merits instead of the color of their skin.” [Fox News Radio, We’re Momming Today, 7/1/23]
• Right-wing commentator Larry Elder tweeted, “The left that bemoans this Supreme Court decision opposes school choice despite the fact that it offers parents and students options to improve test scores and graduation rates for black and Hispanics that Democrats purport to care so much about.” The lengthy tweet ended with “I applaud the Supreme Court's decision.” [Twitter, 6/29/23]
• The Media Research Center published an article titled “MSNBC MELTS DOWN After Affirmative Action Ruled Unconstitutional.” The piece claims that “there was no discussion of how to improve inner-city schools or offer school choice.” [Media Research Center, 6/29/23]
• The Washington Free Beacon quoted Angela Morabito, a spokeswoman for the Defense of Freedom Institute and former Trump Education Department press secretary, who claimed that the best thing teachers union leaders “could do to help minority students is to stop trapping them in failing government-assigned schools and get out of the way of school choice programs that students need and parents deserve.” Morabito also told the Beacon that if “teachers' union bosses truly wanted what's best for students, they would be celebrating the end of race-based discrimination in college admissions.” [Washington Free Beacon, 6/29/23]