#BlackExcellence has been trending all week, throwing images of black students’ academic achievements into the face of Chief Justice Antonin Scalia. The social media attack was a direct response to a highly disturbing comment made by the Supreme Court Justice while hearing arguments about Affirmative Action in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin.

“There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less advanced school, a … slower track school where they do well. I’m just not impressed by the fact that the University of Texas may have fewer. Maybe it ought to have fewer.”

That’s right. This statement was made in 2015 by someone given the power to decide the future of black students all over the nation.

His statement echoes decades of toxic ideology, which states that black students get into top-tier colleges through Affirmative Action and, by doing so, they take spots away from more qualified, or white, students.

Truthfully, I wasn’t surprised to read Scalia’s comment because I’ve faced this kind of thinking time and again in my academic career. In fact, it’d begun to seep into my own thinking and made me question my own value and work ethic.

However, what stands out to me is this idea that if our students are unprepared for college, it’s because they aren’t as smart as their peers.

But getting students of color into top-tier schools isn’t enough.

Yet, we know black students are more likely to deal with poverty-stricken neighborhoods and school districts, less experienced teachers in inner-city school districts, constantly changing curricula, and an unstable home life. None of these create the foundation needed for students to perform well academically.

College is hard for everyone, but especially for those with few resources.

I was fortunate enough to grow up in a supportive environment that allowed me to focus on my education. I was able to intern in my field of study before even attending college, learn to balance employment with school, and most importantly, I learned how to be a student and maintain academic responsibilities.

As a result, I entered school standing just about even with my peers. I was probably more prepared due to also having developed a couple more life skills, courtesy of growing up in an urban environment.

The first day of college, during orientation, we did the typical “look to your left, look to your right,” exercise. We were told that about 33 percent of us wouldn’t make it all four years.

In my experience, it was the girl on my right who didn’t finish.

Some made the adjustment without breaking a sweat. Others clowned around their first semester, then spent four years trying to scramble for a presentable GPA. Some never were able to recover, floundering until they’d been cut off from school aid and forced to leave.

But that goes for both black students and white.

To make the transition, I relied heavily on mentoring from minority campus resources, other minority students, my department chairpersons, and female professors or professors of colors. They helped me understand how to maneuver a college campus, which is markedly different than inner-city high schools and how to seek opportunities and guide my academic career. These resources were instrumental to countless other students of color as well, who see themselves reflected in the administrative and who also received help navigating a new social setting, taking on new responsibilities and simply growing up. These programs often correct and enhance habits and strategies students pick up from previous settings.

The point of Affirmative Action is to level out historically uneven playing fields, but these aren’t due to inherent differences between races. They arise from our historic and continued views on race.

However, because of this, the program doesn’t completely even out the playing field.

It assumes that the student, if placed in the right school, will be able to immediately find success. This doesn’t take into consideration the known effects of growing up in poverty, near crime and surrounded by many of the other social ills young black students are more likely to be exposed to.

This is why Affirmative Action especially works for minority students who grew up with all of the resources of typical white students.

It shouldn’t be undone, of course, but while we’re having this conversation, let’s talk about the work that needs doing next.

We need a common understanding that getting students of color into top-tier schools isn’t enough.

You need mediating factors, like campus resources, a representative and sensitive faculty and reflective curricula to make #BlackExcellence and also Hispanic success and Native American success more widespread and irrefutable by those who feel they are unnecessarily and harmfully pushed to the side.

In other words, treat us like we’re actually wanted at these higher institutions and we’ll flourish. With the right resources, we have the drive to demonstrate why TSU, and countless other colleges and institutes, aren’t even missing out on Abby.