Racial Preferences and the Fainthearted Supreme Court – WSJ

All these distinctions ignore the clear text of the law. The 14th Amendment prohibits state institutions such as UNC from denying to any person the equal protection of the laws. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits entities receiving federal funds, including almost all colleges and universities, from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin.

These laws apply to every race and don t have carve-outs. They don t say discrimination to promote diversity is OK, or discrimination against whites and Asians is OK. In Rice v. Cayetano (2000), the court explained that one of the principal reasons race is treated as a forbidden classification is that it demeans the dignity and worth of a person to be judged by ancestry instead of by his or her own merit and essential qualities.

Moreover, what the court insisted was an exception has become the rule. Bakke, Gratz, Grutter and Fisher II all purported to set firm limits on the use of racial preferences they were to be used only as a nondeterminative factor in a holistic process to promote diversity. But colleges have taken these rulings as carte blanche to discriminate pervasively.

The record in the Harvard case proves it. Harvard monitors the evolving composition of the class by race at every stage of the process, Eric Dreiband, then assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights, told the First Circuit in 2020. The application summary sheets used by admissions officers use race. First readers use race, second readers use race, subcommittees use race, the Harvard admissions committee uses race. . . . The overall rating Harvard assigns to each applicant uses race. The objective and the effect is to produce a class that year over year is racially balanced within a very narrow range. Harvard s own expert admitted that race is the determining factor for hundreds of applicants each year.

via www.wsj.com

If the Court does outlaw discrimination in admissions, it’s going to be a bugger to enforce. In fact, I’d say it’s going to be well-nigh impossible. Ach well.