Apple and a number of other companies have filed a brief with the United States Supreme Court in support of affirmative action programs being challenged at some universities. Apple and the other companies say “diverse groups make better decisions.”
As explained by Bloomberg, the Supreme Court is set to rule on a pair of affirmative action cases. These will mark the first affirmative action cases since conservatives gained a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court.
In the latest cases, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, the plaintiffs say affirmative action not only hurts white applicants, but amounts to an “anti-Asian penalty,” too.
Alongside Apple, companies including Meta, Google, Lyft, Uber, Pinterest, Verizon, and more. In total, there are nearly 80 companies on the brief.
In the brief, the companies wrote that “diverse groups make better decisions” and lead to “increased creativity, sharing of ideas, and accuracy.” The companies also point out that the “benefits are not intangible” and that they also “translate into businesses’ bottom lines.
“Only in this way can America produce a pipeline of highly qualified future workers and business leaders prepared to meet the needs of the modern economy and workforce,” the brief said.
“Empirical studies confirm that diverse groups make better decisions thanks to increased creativity, sharing of ideas, and accuracy,” the companies said in support of the universities. These benefits are not simply intangible; they translate into businesses’ bottom lines.”
“While the benefits of a diverse student body are widely observable, they are all the more salient and compelling in STEM, which has historically been marked by greater limitations in diversity than most fields of study,” the brief said.
This isn’t the first time Apple has put its name behind affirmative action. In the past, both Microsoft and Apple have signed briefs in affirmative action cases in states including Michigan and Texas. Nonetheless, as Bloomberg points out, these companies risk backlash for their support of the universities in these cases.
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