protections under the law. and reverend sharpton, you know the congressional black caucus and leaders including yourself are working hard to get the reauthorization of the voting rights act passed. this is the first time in 40 years republicans have not worked with democrats to do that. we were also pleased with the decision that the court made to uphold section two of the voting rights act, to ensure that there is equal representation in states like alabama, louisiana where we are today, georgia, to make sure that places that have high percentages of black voters also have the ability and the opportunity to elect those individuals to federal office and congress. now, i talked with president biden at 30 rockefeller center in new york for about 15 to 20 minutes earlier this week. and i mean, he was concerned about the high courts decisions that we correctly feared we re about to come down the very
coming down from the court, we re also very focused on empowering ourselves and creating our own opportunities to build wealth and level the playing field. and also fight back. i mean, we have children that are now growing up who will not understand our history, because they are being told in at least 26 states that they can t teach black history. i just got off a panel a few minutes ago with crenshaw, all of you know, who kimberly is. a famous professor of law. at columbia i believe. and she talked about 26 states in this country now are banning the teaching of black history. this is directly linked to the supreme court decisions that are stripping away our fundamental rights. so if a child growing up today, not understanding the vestiges of history or the vestiges of slavery, i should say, is a huge concern. when alfonso, leaders from all sectors of black leadership are here in new orleans.
in a year, does that happen, and do we now face the threat of someone suing that, going to this court, and overturning it if they overturn affirmative action, which is why voting becomes important. it is absolutely why voting is important. why every election matters. reverend sharpton, i want to underscore this point around affirmative action. affirmative action still exist for the privilege. for those who have been under legacy programs. people who are third generation college students who get accepted because their parents were involved, or their big contributor to the university. but it struck it down for race. but yet and still, we do not fund schools properly in this country, we don t have certified teachers and every classroom. we have issues with the pipeline of teachers and administrators of that do not look like the students that they serve, and so this is what we talk about when we talk
my first question is who will be most directly affected by this ruling, and how? are the implications for this ruling beyond just universities, and for example, in the workplace. so, truly this ruling will be attempted to be used in other venues. we are already seeing conservatives lining up to extend the ruling to other venues. but it s really important to understand what was at stake here. the race based affirmative action policies that were dismantled here, the court talked about it as the race was an entirely determinative feature of the admissions decision. but that wasn t the case. based on earlier supreme court presidents like meter versus ballinger which was decided in 2003 and affirmed later in official versus the university of texas in 2016, made clear that universities and colleges could only use race in a very limited way. as part of a holistic calculus that considered a wide range of factors including grades, test
us. let s start with the supreme court s 63 ruling thursday, overturning race based affirmative action and college admissions. yesterday s ruling canceling president biden s student debt relief plan, offering even modest relief to 40 million student borrowers. black borrowers are disproportionately represented in that group. chief justice john roberts claims these rulings are not political. and yet, in these two cases affecting black americans, we see the same 6 to 3 vote, with the three justices appointed by president trump making up the core of the conservative majority. and i ve been telling people all week long that said that we are not one to vote for, your vote is what gave trump the power to appoint a third of this sitting supreme court. three of the nine justices are