A/HRC/56/68/Add.1 systemic racism. Diverse student bodies have the potential to enhance the educational experiences of all students, building respect for difference and diversity. 20. Article 2 (2) of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination provides that “States parties shall, when the circumstances so warrant, take, in the social, economic, cultural and other fields, special and concrete measures to ensure the adequate development and protection of certain racial groups or individuals belonging to them, for the purpose of guaranteeing them the full and equal enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms”. Article 5 (e) (v) explicitly obliges States parties to undertake to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law in enjoyment of the right to education. 21. In this regard, and despite efforts by the federal Government, and some state governments, to mitigate the impact of the Supreme Court decision, it is the effect and not the intention of state policy that will determine compliance. 22. Efforts to mitigate prior decisions on affirmative action at the state level, including in California and Michigan, have reportedly not prevented significant drops in the college attendance rates of those from racially marginalized groups. The Special Rapporteur therefore stresses the importance of legal protections for affirmative action. Some universities and governments have construed the Students for Fair Admissions opinion more broadly than its language requires, to exclude all efforts to promote student body diversity or consider individual students’ racialized experiences. 13 These reports and others raise grave and well-founded concerns that, in the post-Students for Fair Admissions context, the United States may not be capable of meeting its obligations with respect to guaranteeing the right to equality before the law in the enjoyment of equality in the right to education, as set forth under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. E. Poverty and economic inequality 23. The Special Rapporteur is concerned by reports of the overrepresentation of those of African descent, Indigenous Peoples, those living in the overseas territories and persons of Latino/Hispanic origin among those living in poverty. These concerns are compounded by reports about the criminalization of poverty, whereby petty offences are used to lock people into the criminal justice system. Criminalizing poverty is a driver of mass incarceration, which often further impoverishes people. By punishing individuals for poverty and its effects, laws and policies criminalizing poverty obscure how inequality and social exclusion are components of systemic racism. 24. The Special Rapporteur is also concerned by reports of significant racial income and wealth gaps. This is driven by factors such as employment-related discrimination; systemic racism, as a legacy of past racial injustices, and historical government divestment limiting the ability of families from racially marginalized communities to build generational wealth; racial discrimination within the labour market; and the explicit extraction and exploitation of resources from such communities. The 2014 subprime mortgage crisis exemplified economic injustices experienced by those from marginalized racial and ethnic groups. It created the largest loss of Black and Latino wealth in history, a reverse redlining exercise as Black and Latino people were explicitly targeted for adjustable-rate mortgages even when qualifying for standard fixed-rate loans. The Special Rapporteur commends measures taken by the federal Government to build Black wealth and narrow the racial wealth gap. F. Housing and homelessness 25. Shocking levels of homelessness exist among people of African descent in the United States. The Special Rapporteur witnessed unhoused people of African descent in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles, and elsewhere in the city, and in Washington D.C., Detroit, New Orleans and Atlanta. She also received information about high levels of homelessness in 13 6 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense Fund, “Affirmative action in higher education: the racial justice landscape after the SFFA cases” (2023). GE.24-08027