Supreme Court strikes

down affirmative action

in college admissions and

says race cannot be a

factor

 

I say two things on this. First, that imo the Court didn't have to go the full 100 in holding that race cannot be a factor, and indeed there are some places, in the excerpts I have read, where they stopped short of going all the way. A student body's diversity, geographically, socioeconomically, and racially is a valid desideratum of elite higher educational institutions. Second, I say that bad cases make bad law and one of the institutions in this lawsuit was Harvard which had a particularly egregious affirmative action regimen that blatantly discriminated against Asian-American applicants. But the Court had a difficult time articulating its aim. Wrote Chief Justice Roberts for the majority:

“Both programs [North Carolina is the other] lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points.”

So "sufficiently focused" programs can "warrant" use of race as a factor. Squishy.

...“nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration or otherwise.”

What does that mean, that the "applicant" can "discuss" race? Can the institution "discuss back"? Can the institution make its acceptance decision based on the "applicant's discussion of race"? Uber-squishy.

The point, he said, was that applicants must be assessed individually. “In other words,” he wrote, “the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race.”

When someone uses "in other words" it means that (s)he realizes that the first words used were not convincing. Now, let's not take this individual stuff too far! If a wealthy family of generations of alumni surrounds the applicant conferring on her a garland of gold the applicant need not be "treated" as an individual. Just, "in other words", "not on the basis of race."

These cases (I have a third thing to say) have always bothered my liberal heart and mind ever since they first came across my radar in the Bakke case in 1978. Then affirmative action programs were justified as remedial for African-Americans, to overcome centuries of racial discrimination in higher education...You do that in the 1970's by targeting a ratio of African-Americans for admission? What did Allan Bakke have to do with historic discrimination? The concept of retroactive make-up bothered me, as did the 1970's "penalty" on individual non-Black applicants for 1870's discrimination. The reasoning that in choosing him you are not not choosing another bothered me. 

That’s all I have to say.