Science needs affirmative action.

As science struggles to correct systemic racism in the laboratory and throughout academia in the United States, external forces press on, making it even more difficult to achieve equity on all fronts-including among scientists. The latest example is the decision by the US Supreme Court to hear cases brought against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill challenging their right to use race as a factor in undergraduate admissions. It is sometimes easy for scientists to let colleagues in other disciplines engage in a debate like this, but the dismantling of race-conscious admissions would deal another blow to equity in science. The Supreme Court has protected affirmative action in the past, but the Court's current majority of conservative justices could mean the end of the program. This is no time for the scientific community to stay silent. It is a crucial moment for science to mobilize against this latest assault on diversity.