Category Archive

Race Should Not Be a Factor I don’t usually spend time looking at opinion surveys. But a poll out the other day caught my attention on account of its main finding, which is that race should not play any factor in college admissions. This was the work of the Marquette Law Poll, a nationwide survey of voters sponsored by the Catholic University law school, and the arresting number is 77, as in the percent of voters who oppose Supreme Court decisions upholding the use of race as one factor in deciding which applicants get in. Preferences typically poll well—I mean …

Next month, voters in the state of Washington will decide whether to leave in place the ban there on discrimination and preferences in their state and local government contracting, employment, and education that they overwhelmingly endorsed in a similar ballot initiative in 1998.  Just before that election, the Center for Equal Opportunity published a study that documented the extent to which such discrimination was found at the University of Washington and Washington State University.  We have recently sent this study to some of our allies out there, noting that it is fair to point out to the voters this time …

How About 10 Percent? Reading the district court’s decision upholding Harvard College’s use of race in its admissions program, I was struck by Judge Allison Burroughs’ treatment of the term “critical mass.’’ It entered the affirmative action vocabulary in 1992, when the University of Michigan Law School adopted a new admissions policy that would use race to admit a more diverse student body. Barbara Grutter sought entry to the school but was turned down. She sued the law school, ultimately losing in the Supreme Court in 2003. That ruling, Grutter v. Bollinger, is the leading case on “consideration” of race …

For now, at least. A federal trial judge has ruled that, while race is considered by Harvard in determining who gets in and who doesn’t (“the use of race in and of itself is admitted”), and while the plaintiff group has standing in this case to challenge the resulting discrimination against Asian Americans (in line with an earlier ruling), nonetheless Harvard is not breaking the law. The outcome was not surprising, and the judge’s 130-page opinion is unlikely to change many minds or alter the expected trajectory of the case to the Supreme Court. The judge found, “Race is only …

The Assault on American Excellence In 1978, when the Supreme Court upheld race-based admissions in the Bakke case, there was just one Justice who said that the attainment of a diverse student body was a compelling state interest. Today “diversity” is no longer so obscure. Indeed, it is “the most powerful word in higher education today,” says Anthony Kronman. Kronman is a Yale Law professor and former dean of the Yale Law school. His politics are liberal yet he has not been fooled by the diversity cult. The Assault on American Excellence is his new book, which he previewed in …

Inside Higher Education The Supreme Court’s leading race-based admissions case remains Grutter v. Bollinger, which was decided in 2003. In the course of upholding the use of race in the admissions policy at the Michigan Law School, the Supreme Court, with Justice O’Connor writing for a majority of five, decided that diversity can be a compelling interest the pursuit of which can justify the narrowly tailored use of race in selecting applicants. O’Connor said the policy has “the potential to enrich everyone’s education.” Which can be done by enrolling a “critical mass” of underrepresented minority students, thus ensuring their ability …