A follow up to the Supreme Court’s decision in Fisher v. U. Texas.
John Yoo writes at National Review (emphasis mine):
Some conservatives are probably taking heart that the Court, by seven to one, reversed the lower court, which had upheld UT’s explicit use of racial preferences in its undergraduate admissions process….But put me down on the pessimistic side of the ledger. I think this is a setback for the cause of returning the nation to the color-blind principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. For a majority of the Court, it seems to me, continues to agree that “diversity” in higher education is a compelling government interest that survives the strictest of scrutiny by the courts. Until Grutter v. Bollinger, the 2003 case that blessed affirmative action in university admissions, the Court had found that the only time classifying by race could qualify as a compelling government interest was in wartime — and that was in the Japanese internment case, Korematsu. To compare diversity in higher education to the nation’s ability to defend itself in wartime showed how mistaken the Court was in Grutter.But in Fisher, the Court declined to reconsider this terrible mistake. Instead, the Court returned the case for further proceedings because it wants the lower court to seriously examine whether any individual affirmative-action program was “narrowly tailored” to achieving the goal of racial diversity in higher education. This left the basic law of Grutter unchanged and only ensures that challenges to affirmative action will focus on the ways that schools measure an applicant’s skin color, but not on the unconstitutionality of using skin color at all.Liberal judges know that they have university administrators on their side. There is no value in the university setting that holds the allegiance of faculty more than affirmative action. Universities will sacrifice almost anything to protect and preserve racial preferences….
Some evidence of how proponents of using race in admissions view the result as a victory is this press statement emailed by NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman immediately after the decision (emphasis mine):
“We are pleased that today’s decision preserves the vital principle that fostering racial diversity in education is a compelling interest critical to the future of the States and our Nation. While we are disappointed the Supreme Court did not affirm the Fifth Circuit’s decision, we are also pleased that the Supreme Court confirmed that courts should defer to a university’s judgment on the educational benefits of a diverse environment, and made clear that a university need not exhaust other alternatives before considering race in admissions.”
The obsession with race will not go away in academia, and ways will be found to preserve racial preferences unless and until the practice of practicing racism is outlawed.
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