Category Archive

Harvard was not a party in Bakke, but it was the most important opinion in that landmark case. It deserves to be read together with the filings in the ongoing Harvard racial admissions discrimination case, which was argued in October and the decision in which could come any time. It’s remarkable that one school could figure so prominently in two major cases raising many of the same issues, but that is what we have here. The 1978 Bakke case included an opinion that sanctioned use of the diversity rationale by which applicants lacking the race necessary for a sufficiently racial …

With countless Democrats eager to run for president in 2020, and with race a doubtless campaign topic in the short two years ahead, maybe some of the would-be Democratic candidates will see the merits of something President Obama once said, namely that the America he sees and celebrates is “not a black America and white America and Latino America or Asian America” but “the United States of America.” Obama said that during his breakthrough speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Alas, his tenure too often encouraged Americans to see themselves in terms of color and ethnicity, as I argued in …

The Supreme Court Refuses to Stand in the Way of the People of Michigan In 2014 the Justices refused to strike down a ballot measure in Michigan providing that the state and its agencies “shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, and public contracting.” I wrote about Schuette when the decision was handed down (for The Weekly Standard). It was a ruling that allowed the people of Michigan—and not the federal courts—to decide whether basic …

According to a recent survey, Americans don’t like racial preferences.  This is not news, being quite in line with many earlier polls, but the time and place here are rather propitious, with the Harvard affirmative-action case going to trial next week. The new survey, by Boston’s public-radio station no less, asked this question: “The Supreme Court has decided colleges can use race as one factor in deciding which applicants to admit. Do you agree or disagree with this ruling?” And 72 percent of those surveyed said they disagreed with the Court’s ruling, with only 24 percent agreeing. (Indeed, the only …

Now there was some interesting news—the story of a college that had ended affirmative action. I hustled to write a piece about this, only to find out that the College of Charleston was touting its commitment to affirmative action and going to continue to practice it in its admissions program. Too bad, at least for me. I wound up revising my article, published a few weeks ago in The Weekly Standard. The Charleston reversal (or whatever it was) remains compelling for the reminder it sends—namely, that the legal doctrine under which the courts have permitted racial preferences in admissions has …

On July 3, the Trump administration announced that it was rescinding Obama-era guidance on the use of race and ethnicity in student admissions (higher education) and assignments (K–12). This is good news. As I explained on National Review Online as the Obama statements were issued — here and here and here, for example — they misread the law and were bad policy as well. It’s not that complicated: As a policy matter, skin color and national origin should not play a role in deciding where a student can go to school. The costs of such discrimination overwhelm any claim of …