Because Harvard’s and UNC’s admissions programs 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, those admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause. At the same time, nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university. Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. This Nation’s constitutional history does not tolerate that choice. Pp. 39–40.
The decision must be somewhat moderate, I'm inferring, because there are concurring opinions from Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh.
The Chief quotes Grutter — "We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today" — and adds:
Twenty years later, no end is in sight. “Harvard’s view about when [race-based admissions will end] doesn’t have a date on it.” Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 20–1199, p. 85; Brief for Respondent in No. 20–1199, p. 52. Neither does UNC’s. 567 F. Supp. 3d, at 612. Yet both insist that the use of race in their admissions programs must continue.
But we have permitted race-based admissions only within the confines of narrow restrictions. University programs must comply with strict scrutiny, they may never use race as a stereotype or negative, and—at some point—they must end. Respondents’ admissions systems—however well intentioned and implemented in good faith—fail each of these criteria. They must therefore be invalidated under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
There is some expression of judicial restraint as the Court looks at the assertion that the universities have a compelling interest in racial classification:
How is a court to know whether leaders have been adequately “train[ed]”; whether the exchange of ideas is “robust”; or whether “new knowledge” is being developed? Ibid.; 980 F. 3d, at 173–174. Even if these goals could somehow be measured, moreover, how is a court to know when they have been reached, and when the perilous remedy of racial preferences may cease? There is no particular point at which there exists sufficient “innovation and problem- solving,” or students who are appropriately “engaged and productive.” 567 F. Supp. 3d, at 656. Finally, the question in this context is not one of no diversity or of some: it is a question of degree....
But the Court isn't satisfied with just trusting the universities to do the work of taking race into account and assembling a student body with the right sort and degree of diversity.
It is true that our cases have recognized a “tradition of giving a degree of deference to a university’s academic decisions.” Grutter, 539 U. S., at 328. But we have been unmistakably clear that any deference must exist “within constitutionally prescribed limits,” ibid., and that “deference does not imply abandonment or abdication of judicial review,” Miller–El v. Cockrell, 537 U. S. 322, 340 (2003). Universities may define their missions as they see fit. The Constitution defines ours. Courts may not license separating students on the basis of race without an exceedingly persuasive justification that is measurable and concrete enough to permit judicial review.
That is, we're not going to leave you alone just because you've made what you're doing so subtle that courts can't figure it out. You need to make your use of race "measurable and concrete" — so we, the courts, can see what you've done.
The majority opinion ends saying the Harvard and UNC admissions programs violate the Equal Protection Clause because they "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."We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so today.
At the same time, as all parties agree, 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... But, despite the dissent’s assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today. (A dissenting opinion is generally not the best source of legal advice on how to comply with the majority opinion.)
Ah! So there is room to argue that not much has changed.
The Chief denies it:
“[W]hat cannot be done directly cannot be done indirectly. The Constitution deals with substance, not shadows,” and the prohibition against racial discrimination is “levelled at the thing, not the name.” Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, 325 (1867). A benefit to a student who overcame racial discrimination, for example, must be tied to that student’s courage and determination. Or a benefit to a student whose heritage or culture motivated him or her to assume a leadership role or attain a particular goal must be tied to that student’s unique ability to contribute to the university. In other words, the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race.
Many universities have for too long done just the opposite. And in doing so, they have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.
So let's move on to the concurring opinions.
Justice Thomas joins the majority opinion in full but writes separately "to offer an originalist defense of the colorblind Constitution; to explain further the flaws of the Court’s Grutter jurisprudence; to clarify that all forms of discrimination based on race—including so-called affirmative action—are prohibited under the Constitution; and to emphasize the pernicious effects of all such discrimination."
Thomas expresses his opinion that efforts to use race-based solutions to do good have gone wrong. In segregationist days, it was argued "that race-based discrimination was needed 'to preserve harmony and peace and at the same time furnish equal education to both groups.'" And slaveholders have "argued that slavery was a ‘positive good’ that civilized blacks and elevated them in every dimension of life.'"
We cannot now blink reality to pretend, as the dissents urge, that affirmative action should be legally permissible merely because the experts assure us that it is “good” for black students....
Simply treating students as though their grades put them at the top of their high school classes does nothing to enhance the performance level of those students or otherwise prepare them for competitive college environments.... Those students who receive a large admissions preference are more likely to drop out of STEM fields....
[I]t seems increasingly clear that universities are focused on “aesthetic” solutions unlikely to help deserving members of minority groups.... [T]hese programs are overinclusive, providing the same admissions bump to a wealthy black applicant...
Finally, it is not even theoretically possible to “help” a certain racial group without causing harm to members of other racial groups....
My quick read of the majority opinion sees it as a moderate, minimalist change, but Thomas writes:
The Court’s opinion rightly makes clear that Grutter is, for all intents and purposes, overruled. And, it sees the universities’ admissions policies for what they are: rudderless, race-based preferences designed to ensure a particular racial mix in their entering classes...
The majority opinion does not say it overrules Grutter. It seems to demand that Grutter be followed more stringently. It is left to Thomas to assert that Grutter is "for all intents and purposes, overruled."
Justice Sotomayor's dissenting opinion quotes that line — "Grutter is, for all intents and purposes, overruled." She adds:
It is a disturbing feature of today’s decision that the Court does not even attempt to make the extraordinary showing required by stare decisis. The Court simply moves the goalposts, upsetting settled expectations and throwing admissions programs nationwide into turmoil.
Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justice Thomas, concurring with the majority, writes separately to say that today's opinion, which interprets the 14th Amendment (and thus deals with state schools), dictates how Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 should be interpreted. That is, it applies to private institutions.
Now, I'm reading Justice Kavanaugh, who is concurring to observe the same thing that I've been observing, which is that the Court's opinion follows consistently from Grutter.
[T]he Court’s pronouncement of a 25-year period—as both an extension of and an outer limit to race-based affirmative action in higher education—formed an important part of the carefully constructed Grutter decision.
In her dissenting opinion — joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson — Justice Sotomayor has this to say about that time limit:
True, Grutter referred to “25 years,” but that arbitrary number simply reflected the time that had elapsed since the Court “first approved the use of race” in college admissions in Bakke. Grutter, 539 U. S., at 343. It is also true that Grutter remarked that “race-conscious admissions policies must be limited in time,” but it did not do so in a vaccum [sic], as the Court suggests. Id., at 342. Rather than impose a fixed expiration date, the Court tasked universities with the responsibility of periodically assessing whether their race-conscious programs “are still necessary.” Ibid....
Equality is an ongoing project in a society where racial inequality persists.... A temporal requirement that rests on the fantasy that racial inequality will end at a predictable hour is illogical and unworkable....
Get that? If you took the 25-year time line seriously, you must be living in a fantasy world. How much more of the Supreme Court's work are we delusional to believe? To be fair, a lot of people took that 25-year time line as nonsense when it was first announced. Was anyone really relying on it? Those who opposed affirmative action were not holding back and waiting for the 25 years to run out. They've been fighting it the entire time. And those who favored affirmative action were not planning to wind it down obediently and quit when the time was up.
Speaking of time lines... here's how Sotomayor concludes:
Despite the Court’s unjustified exercise of power, the opinion today will serve only to highlight the Court’s own impotence in the face of an America whose cries for equality resound. As has been the case before in the history of American democracy, “the arc of the moral universe” will bend toward racial justice despite the Court’s efforts today to impede its progress. Martin Luther King “Our God is Marching On!” Speech (Mar. 25, 1965).
There is also a dissenting opinion from Justice Jackson, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan:
Given our history, the origin of persistent race-linked gaps should be no mystery. It has never been a deficiency of Black Americans’ desire or ability to, in Frederick Douglass’s words, “stand on [their] own legs.” Rather, it was always simply what Justice Harlan recognized 140 years ago—the persistent and pernicious denial of “what had already been done in every State of the Union for the white race.” Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S., at 61 (dissenting opinion).
History speaks. In some form, it can be heard forever. The race-based gaps that first developed centuries ago are echoes from the past that still exist today. By all accounts, they are still stark....
To be sure, while the gaps are stubborn and pernicious, Black people, and other minorities, have generally been doing better. But those improvements have only been made possible because institutions like UNC have been willing to grapple forthrightly with the burdens of history....
The overarching reason the majority gives for becoming an impediment to racial progress—that its own conception of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause leaves it no other option—has a wholly self-referential, two- dimensional flatness....
With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces “colorblindness for all” by legal fiat....
No one benefits from ignorance. Although formal race-linked legal barriers are gone, race still matters to the lived experiences of all Americans in innumerable ways, and today’s ruling makes things worse, not better. The best that can be said of the majority’s perspective is that it proceeds (ostrich-like) from the hope that preventing consideration of race will end racism. But if that is its motivation, the majority proceeds in vain...
Time will reveal the results. Yet the Court’s own missteps are now both eternally memorialized and excruciatingly plain....
[B]y latching onto arbitrary timelines and professing in- security about missing metrics, the Court sidesteps unrefuted proof of the compelling benefits of holistic admissions programs that factor in race (hard to do, for there is plenty), simply proceeding as if no such evidence exists. Then, ultimately, the Court surges to vindicate equality, but Don Quixote style—pitifully perceiving itself as the sole vanguard of legal high ground when, in reality, its perspective is not constitutionally compelled and will hamper the best judgments of our world-class educational institutions about who they need to bring onto their campuses right now to benefit every American, no matter their race....
Posts
103 comments:
And with that, thousands of university administrators cried out in terror, and quickly put their attorneys to work silently trying to figure out ways around this.
Nothing unexpectedly terrible happened, just a minor disturbance in the farce.
This is Crazy!
we're supposed to believe that we DON'T Need affirmative action?
Just look at the Supreme Court itself!
until over 40% of the court are women*, and over 10% are Black... We will NEED affirmative action.
Come back and Talk to me , when At Least 4 Justices are women*, and we have At Least ONE Black!!
women* not that i'd know what those are.. I'm no biologist
The worst possible thing you can say to the Progressive orthodoxy: SHOW YOUR WORK!
One of my biggest problems with Affirmative Action, (apart from the fact it is state sponsored racial discrimination...hasn't anyone ever told these people two wrongs don't make a right?) is that there is no definition/determination of when it will no longer be needed.
It will hopefully become clear to everyone in the next couple of weeks that the Left wants AA to go on forever.
> RideSpaceMountain said...
And with that, thousands of university administrators cried out in terror, and quickly put their attorneys to work silently trying to figure out ways around this.<
And take it to the bank - they will find those ways. And it will be another 20 years of de facto skin color affirmative action business as usual before the Supreme's get around again to shooting down the new subterfuges.
Finally. And hopefully the start of a return to some semblance of sanity. Now do racial preferences in hiring and government contracts.
I look forward to a class action suit on behalf of rejected Asian students against Ivy League schools after they still keep on discriminating against Asians in their admissions.
Affirmative Action is the racial discrimination that negatively affected my life when it came to college admissions.
Is that something that White men are allowed to write on a college application?
Completely failing to note that, with the advent of race-based quotas at the expense of merit-based selections, a groundswell of change has moved through society, creating a social environment where merit is placed last and physical appearances, among the shallowest of all human metrics, is now used as the official primary selection method, even now being enhanaced by an even shallower one: "I identify as...."
How can the court avoid this aspect of Affirmative Action, its contribution to the consequential outcome to society? And yet they have.
"Because Harvard’s and UNC’s admissions programs 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, those admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause. At the same time, nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or
unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university. Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. This Nation’s constitutional history does not tolerate that choice. Pp. 39–40."
Well.
The corrupt liar White left and and white left racist Whoopie machine to melt down in rage in 3...2...1
Note to Gilbar.
You may not have noticed, but there are two Black justices on the Court.
Now to the payoff quote:
“Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. “
Amen.
"This Nation’s constitutional history does not tolerate that choice."
So, we now have a constitutional history, to supplement or umbrae and penumbrae. I'm sure it will come in handy.
"Not shadows...". A sly dig at "penumbras", perhaps?
An interesting tact taken by Roberts- he clearly understands that the proponents of affirmative action intend to turn their processes even more opaque to evade the restrictions of racial discrimination- it was, indeed, what Harvard and UNC were doing prior to today's decision- trying to hide the discrimination with a "sociability" score that was used to deny entry to a certain ethnic class that was scoring too high on the merit tests.
Like I wrote the other day, the progressives in control of these institutions and, increasingly, corporations will try to continue to discriminate based on race, but Roberts issued a pretty clear warning- he doesn't intend to allow this obscurantism to persist- the admissions offices will have to make the process transparent. I was doubtful that anything would change absent billion dollar judgments against these institutions in class action lawsuits. I think Roberts has opened the door for these kinds of lawsuits to be more likely to succeed since hiding the process will be taken as evidence of malfeasance.
There is a way to do this without discrimination- set a minimum SAT/ACT score and GPA normalized- put all the applicants' names into a giant bin and have a public drawing on-line. Keep drawing as necessary until the total number of new students desired each year is reached. This is how I would do it were I the president of Harvard since I don't even trust myself to be unbiased if I were to start trying to assess who to admit and who not to admit.
Darn! Looks like SCOTUS thinks higher education admissions should be based on an individual meritocracy model instead of a race-based spoils system!
The horror! The horror! Or, paraphrasing the beloved philosopher John Blutarsky, “50+ years of gaming the system down the drain!”
I can't wait for the lawsuits over those that were not given a chance because they weren't the favored race. Some probably went to another university, have become successful attorneys, and are looking for blood. May they be successful, their awards make them very wealthy, and they enjoy their trips to the bank.
The MSNBC-PBS lying liar who lie head-lines are going to be off the charts inaccurate an deceptive.
White left.
The predictions were right - Robert’s took writing the opinion in order to keep it away from Thomas, who is now the senior Associate Justice, and thus next in line. What is going to be interesting is contrasting the main Opinion and Thomas’ Concurrence, which is highly suggestive of where the Opinion would have gone, absent Robert’s pulling rank.
The decision must be somewhat moderate, I'm inferring, because there are concurring opinions from Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh.
While that's an entirely valid heuristic, in this case I believe it fails.
Twenty years later, no end is in sight. “Harvard’s view about when [race-based admissions will end] doesn’t have a date on it.” Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 20–1199, p. 85; Brief for Respondent in No. 20–1199, p. 52. Neither does UNC’s. 567 F. Supp. 3d, at 612. Yet both insist that the use of race in their admissions programs must continue.
"Your time is over" doesn't ever-rule Grutter, it says "well, they said 25, max, and we're going with 20".
They're enforcing the words of Grutter.
Now, the reality is that the Grutter 5 wanted to punt, on the assumption that the next time SCOTUS would punt agin. That assumption has failed.
But the legal ruling of Grutter is upheld, including the ruling that the permission was temporary, and would go away.
And now it has
At the same time, as all parties agree, 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... But, despite the dissent’s assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today.
Add to that, this
Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. This Nation’s constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.
"Affirmative Action", DEI, etc are all dead.
I was afraid Roberts and Kavanaugh were going to screw us, but they didn't.
If you're in a conservative Circuit, sue any and every DEI program you can find. You will win
In case everyone hasn't noticed, colleges and universities across the country are eliminating the SAT and ACT from their admissions requirements so they can make it harder to prove racial discrimination. Even here in GA they have been eliminated from all the state universities except for Georgia Tech and UGA.
"upsetting settled expectations"
We had such a nice race-mongering business going, it's upsetting!
"throwing admissions programs nationwide into turmoil"
What, they have to follow the law? LIke, "equal" means equal? That's turmoil right there. But they'll think of something. Progs won't let turmoil go to waste. Loopholes in CJ's opinion will help.
Poor Ivys that will go plurality Asian. Given the rotten performance of Harvard grads Blinken, Garland et al, I have no sympathy for these hedge funds with benefits anymore.
The colleges were given enough wiggle room by Roberts to evade the heart of the issue.
With the Triton submersible we see the "benefits" of avoiding merit.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/06/the-oceangate-disaster-a-submarine-captains-early-unofficial-assessment/
"Completely failing to note that, with the advent of race-based quotas at the expense of merit-based selections, a groundswell of change has moved through society, creating a social environment where merit is placed last and physical appearances, among the shallowest of all human metrics, is now used as the official primary selection method, even now being enhanaced by an even shallower one: "I identify as...."
Amen. 100+
Nothing is and nothing will survive the competency crisis, if you haven't been able to tell by the disasters of kakistocracy that drop daily into our news feeds. For decades they rigged the system to give the most underperforming access to the pedigree - not the knowledge - to attain the benefits of high-skill jobs they weren't anywhere near suited to take.
So now bridges fall, submarines implode, foreign adventures fail, manmade viruses ravage the planet, and political crises occur every 24 hours. And you know what? We're not even close to the worst yet because thanks to modern healthcare, these serial unachievers have decades of incompetence left before they gracelessly expire.
Now that will be a great disturbance in the farce!
Question fo the legal minds here: so if the 14th Amendment applies to admissions at private institutions, how can more overtly racialized admission programs at HBCUs continue?
since it's OK for the corrupt left to call Justice Thomas an "Uncle Tom"...
It is 100% accurate and appropriate to call Obama, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Reid, and Sunny Hostin - (for starters) WHITE LEFTISTS.
Now do hiring and promotion so we won't have suffer the incompetence of affirmative action employees. I worked for an organization where the woke CEO hired an affirmative action incompetent HR person who hired an affirmative action unqualified bookkeeper who made everyone's life miserable until we could get him fired. Not to mention his effect on serving our customers.
Jersey Fled said...
Note to Gilbar.
You may not have noticed, but there are two Black justices on the Court.
i can count the women too.. it Could Be, that i was being snarky (it's happened in the past :)
Sorry about multiple posts.
Another question for the legal minds here: is the AA decision compatible with originalism, insofar as it relies not the CRA but on the Constitution?
The 14th amdendment says: "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." How does Harvard's racist admissions process involve a "state" denying people equal protection of "the laws"?
The Chief Justice is always moderate in the pursuit of rights enumerated in the Constitution that do not comport with leftist dogma.
Clarence Thomas is a national treasure.
Excerpts from the syllabus:
Despite the early recognition of the broad sweep of the Equal Pro- tection Clause, the Court—alongside the country—quickly failed to live up to the Clause’s core commitments
The conclusion reached by the Brown Court was unmistak- ably clear: the right to a public education “must be made available to all on equal terms.” 347 U. S., at 493. The Court reiterated that rule just one year later, holding that “full compliance” with Brown required schools to admit students “on a racially nondiscriminatory basis.”
In the years that followed, Brown’s “fundamental principle that ra- cial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional,” id., at 298, reached other areas of life—for example, state and local laws requiring segregation in busing, ... These decisions, and others like them, reflect the “core purpose” of the Equal Protection Clause: “do[ing] away with all governmentally imposed discrimination based on race.”
Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it. Accordingly, the Court has held that the Equal Protection Clause applies “without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality”— it is “universal in [its] application.” Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 369. For “[t]he guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color.”
“[d]istinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.”
Describing the rulings of Grutter:
Admissions programs could thus not operate on the “belief that minor- ity students always (or even consistently) express some characteristic minority viewpoint on any issue.”
A university’s use of race, accordingly, could not occur in a manner that “unduly harm[ed] nonminority applicants.”
To manage these concerns, Grutter imposed one final limit on race-based admissions programs: At some point, the Court held, they must end.
Those interests include training future leaders, acquiring new knowledge based on diverse outlooks, promoting a robust marketplace of ideas, and preparing engaged and productive citizens. While these are commendable goals, they are not sufficiently coherent for purposes of strict scrutiny.
Second, respondents’ admissions programs fail to articulate a mean- ingful connection between the means they employ and the goals they pursue. [This has always been true. That Roberts is calling them out on this is massive]
Respondents’ race-based admissions systems also fail to comply with the Equal Protection Clause’s twin commands that race may never be used as a “negative” and that it may not operate as a stereotype. The First Circuit found that Harvard’s consideration of race has resulted in fewer admissions of Asian-American students. Respondents’ assertion that race is never a negative factor in their admissions programs cannot withstand scrutiny. College admissions are zero-sum, and a benefit provided to some applicants but not to others necessarily advantages the former at the expense of the latter..
[Hiring and promotions are also zero-sum. This line drives a stake through the heart of any DEI program that does anything more than funnel extra recruiting ads to "minority outreach".
"Both were qualified, so we took the black person" can't meet this requirement, if the "white person" was more qualified than the "black" one.]
Respondents admissions programs are infirm for a second reason as well: They require stereotyping—the very thing Grutter foreswore. When a university admits students “on the basis of race, it engages in the offensive and demeaning assumption that [students] of a particu- lar race, because of their race, think alike.”
[The same is true for employment]
25 years announced that differences are socially constructed, so wait and see. After 25 years data suggests that differences apparently are pretty permanent.
How did Harvard, a private institution, violate the Equal Protections Clause? It didn’t, but to understand why the Chief Justice seems to say it did one has to read footnote 2. There’s some verbal gymnastics.
Final excerpts:
The problem with this approach is well established: “[O]utright racial balancing” is “patently unconstitutional.”
But Grutter never suggested that periodic review can make unconstitutional conduct constitutional.
Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. This Nation’s constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.
Roberts used "moderate" language, but what he did was go through the previous rulings, find the places where they mouthed decent pieties before getting down to the business of supporting racial segregation, pulled out those pieties, and ruled: now we're going to actually follow them.
Given that over 55% of CA voters voted to ban racial preferences, the position Roberts took is the "moderate", "middle of the road" position.
But the position is completely anathema to the Left, and completely overturns the effects of Bakke, Grutter, and Fischer
Good job Roberts
Thomas is the only one around from 20 years ago in the Court.
By racial inequality Sotomayor assumes that all races cognitive functions are the same on average. They are not.
It’s no more racial inequality in academics than it’s racial inequality in athletics just because a white guy hasn’t been in the finals of the 100 meter dash since the 1980 Olympics.
Character matters more than cognitive or athletic prowess.
Sotomayor lacks character.
Admission (2013) with Paul Rudd and Tina Fey was good, on Princeton admissions process.
There’s a chart?
Word is the decision has a chart.
Is freedom of association more permissible or less permissible now?
It should be completely permissible except in monopoly markets, to get the snags out of the constitution that have been put in by the civil rights act.
Agree with the commenters who challenge our host's (initial) opinion that the ruling is moderate and minimalist. Perhaps working within the industry skews the view, or perhaps she knows the effect will be minimalist because she knows the people running the joint(s) won't change. We'll see.
Sebastian said...
How does Harvard's racist admissions process involve a "state" denying people equal protection of "the laws"?
From the Chief in the opinion:
Sebastian said...
Sorry about multiple posts.
Another question for the legal minds here: is the AA decision compatible with originalism, insofar as it relies not the CRA but on the Constitution?
The 14th Amendment says: "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." How does Harvard's racist admissions process involve a "state" denying people equal protection of "the laws"?
From the Chief in footnote 2:
"Title VI provides that “[n]o person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” 42 U. S. C. §2000d. “We have explained that discrimination that violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment committed by an institution that accepts federal funds also constitutes a violation of Title VI.” Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 244, 276, n. 23 (2003). Although JUSTICE GORSUCH questions that proposition, no party asks us to reconsider it. We accordingly evaluate Harvard’s admissions program under the standards of the Equal Protection Clause itself."
GtCT said:
"But the position is completely anathema to the Left, and completely overturns the effects of Bakke, Grutter, and Fischer
Good job Roberts"
Agree. He dismantled the entire race-based apparatus that universities have illegally constructed, saying that such procedures and policies have never been acceptable under SCOTUS precedent. Maybe that's what Althouse sees as a minimalist change, yet it expressly declares the status quo unconstitutional. That's not minimalist. The effect might be if, like racists who refused to undo Jim Crow, the DEI "readers" of applications do indirectly what they cannot do directly and continue to discriminate against Asians in favor of minorities they like better (blacks, QWERTs, etc).
This “decision” is a load of vapid rhetorical mush, “deciding” nothing. Colleges will respond with their own rhetorical mush, and change nothing.
THIS is why I love Clarence Thomas. He puts the black RACISTS (who don't know what a woman is) in their place.
KBJ "locks blacks into a seemingly perpetual inferior caste. Such a view is irrational; it is an insult to individual achievement and cancerous to young minds seeking to push through barriers, rather than consign themselves to permanent victimhood."
...
"JUSTICE JACKSON’s race-infused world view falls flat at each step. Individuals are the sum of their unique experiences, challenges, and accomplishments. What matters is not the barriers they face, but how they choose to confront them."
https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1674432761019666435?
How am I going to believe someone who changes the words in a quote and yet still tries to quote the person who didn't say that:
in Frederick Douglass’s words, “stand on [their] own legs.”
What he said was: "And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!”
"His" not "their". Liars.
Left Bank playing stupid again or, perhaps, doing it authentically?
"How did Harvard, a private institution, violate the Equal Protections Clause? It didn’t, but to understand why the Chief Justice seems to say it did one has to read footnote 2. There’s some verbal gymnastics."
Harvard is free, Left Bank, to give up all federal, state, and local funds if it chooses.
Look, conservatives didn't make these rules that make Harvard capable of violating the 14th Amendment- your political cohort did, Left Bank. Own it for once.
@Sebastian - "How does Harvard's racist admissions process involve a "state" denying people equal protection of "the laws"?"
Because much of Harvard's money comes from the federal government. If the government continues to give it money even though it has a racist admissions policy, that racist admissions policy becomes "state action"--accepted and helped out by the government.
OF COURSE the Admissions Offices will keep doing what they've been doing and nothing will really change. The (mostly successful) drive to eliminate any objective standards in admission (or anywhere else) IS NOT ABOUT AFRICAN-AMERICANS (who only make up 12% of the population). They are the EXCUSE. The underlying incentive that drives this behavior far more than any ideology is that the institutions at the top of the prestige hierarchy want to maximize their long-term revenue, and the way to do that is to find a way to "sell" each seat in the class to the highest bidder. Because of our tax structure, schools are easily able to act quite long-term in this approach, so "maximizing revenue" means more than anything "getting a stream of donations from families long after graduation." Open and objective standards makes that much more difficult. An opaque process helps institutions and people within them reward their friends and potential friends and punish their enemies, and the process is going to get even more opaque, with the internal excuse being to "create a diverse student body" but the real reason being to maximize money and power.
Given their endowment, Harvard shouldn't need federal money. So why don't they simply forego it and then do whatever they want?
Note to Gilbar.
You may not have noticed, but there are two Black justices on the Court.
I think Gilbar was being sarcastic (note that there are four women as well) to make the point that women and minorities are already doing just fine (or, perhaps, to point out the irony that the makeup of the Court that struck down racial preferences was arrived at via racial preferences).
Slightly off-topic, but for some reason I always read Gilbar comments in the voice of Gilbert Godfried (similarity of the names, probably), so I am always inserting a sarcastic tone that may or may not be intended.
"upsetting settled expectations"
What "settled expectations" are being upset here - did minority students slack off in school, counting on AA to get them into college? That is really the only argument about upsetting expectations that I can see.
Can a policy be said to be "narrowly tailored to achieve" certain objectives, when the policy does NOT in fact achieve the objectives? In 1967, the average black household had income that was 58% of the income of the average white household. After 50 years of AA, the income disparity had fallen from 58% to 61%. US Treasury report here.
Doesn’t matter. Things will continue apace. Admit all black applicants and give them a degree on day one. See how many stay to learn. See how many succeed.
“Finally, it is not even theoretically possible to “help” a certain racial group without causing harm to members of other racial groups.”
Justice Thomas seems to be channeling the Zero-Sum Society. Hasn’t that been thoroughly discredited?
>"At the same time, nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or
unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university."<
And there it is, just what the university lawyers are looking for. A great subjective criterion for them all to hang their hats on. A gift from the SC. You are just not going to believe how many hundreds of thousands of Black applicants' discussions of how race affected their lives are going to contribute immensely to the university. University lawyers' problem solved...
Skin color is a truly pernicious and immaterial factor to differentiate between individuals. Using it as a measure of diversity in college admission is as useless as using the countries of origin or the religious practice or the ethnicity of an individual's great grandparents. All are fixed features of an applicant that cannot be changed, and neither one defines the person, the individual, who should be treated the same as any other person under rules of admission objectively transparent to all.
"At the same time, nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university."
I ain't gots no legal learnin' but..
Seems like room to continue "holistic" considerations.
Also, quite a unique arrangement where the seller considers whether the buyer is worthy..what do they bring to the table?
Sounds more like a private club.
Justice Jackson's view seems to be, "Racial discrimination is terrible and unconstitutional when done by the wrong people for the wrong reasons, but wonderful and constitutional when done by the right people for the right reasons."
It goes without saying that Harvard is "the right people". "Diversity" is a right reason.
Sotomayor comes across as a mediocre thinker.
The it's fun to compare the ratio of rhetoric to citations between the majority opinion and Justice Jackon's dissent.
Roberts, though, writes a Roberts opinion and makes sure nothing's settled nor even clarified all that much.
Left Bank of the Charles said...
How did Harvard, a private institution, violate the Equal Protections Clause?
so, Left Bank doesn't think Harvard accepts federal dollars? What an interesting world he lives in
You may not have noticed, but there are two Black justices on the Court.
But Thomas votes the wrong way, so he doesn't count.
I can't wait for the lawsuits over those that were not given a chance because they weren't the favored race.
You don't have to. That's exactly what Bakke was. How'd that go?
MountainMan said..."In case everyone hasn't noticed, colleges and universities across the country are eliminating the SAT and ACT from their admissions requirements so they can make it harder to prove racial discrimination."
Your point is well taken, but I think in this decision SCOTUS is one step ahead of university admissions officers plotting an end-around: As AA points out, SCOTUS basically said "we're not going to leave you alone just because you've made what you're doing so subtle that courts can't figure it out. You need to make your use of race "measurable and concrete" — so we, the courts, can see what you've done."
"Measurable and concrete" criteria are well documented with SAT scores and high school GPAs, so I suspect they will have to be reinstituted, if only to protect the Universities from future discrimination lawsuits. Kind of like the NFL combine: everyone runs the 40, and your time is your time, uncorrected for skin color. Everyone takes the same SAT, and your score is your score. More subjective judgments about "life experiences" are far less "concrete," and will be much harder to defend when a well qualified Asian American, who still took the SAT and scored in the 99th percentile, gets rejected by Harvard because of low "social scores."
Any University who cannot cite measurable and concrete criteria supporting their admissions decisions is going to be set up for a painful and potentially expensive racial discrimination lawsuit. And if there is one thing that University administrators value more than woke virtue signalling, it's MONEY.
Roberts follows up on a suggestion he made at oral argument and punts to another day the question of affirmative action at West Point, Annapolis, etc. Awaiting disgruntled Asian plaintiff denied admission there.
"Sotomayor comes across as a mediocre thinker."
Sotomayor doesn't understand the difference between Federal and State powers, and made an ass out of herself earlier this year over it.
She IS a mediocre thinker, which doesn't bode well for all the other "wise latinas"...
Whiteness Studies is fucking embarrassing.
And our legal authorities -- specifically the United States Supreme Court -- is responsible for that shit.
And they know it.
You white people who put capital letters on Black and insist that white is inferior
we already have a name for you
Uncle Tom
study up on self-hatred!
and before you say "only black people can hate themselves"
maybe you ought to re-read without your racist goggles
At the same time, nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university.
What's brilliant about this (in my opinion), is that the universities can decide for themselves how many racist haters they want in their university.
They might love getting a racist hater and then find themselves shocked that the racist hater they signed up for has the wrong race. And hates them!
Other universities might say, "Fuck these racist haters, I'm tired of the racist stupidity, we want the racists to self-identify so we can keep them the fuck out."
(See also job applications).
Barry, Roger, thanks. I'll now go read the opinion(s) :). In the meantime:
“We have explained that discrimination that violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment committed by an institution that accepts federal funds also constitutes a violation of Title VI.” Yes, they may have "explained" it, but my question really got at the type of explanation--can conservative originalists accept an "explanation" that takes as a premise that 14A applies to private institutions, not public institutions operated by "states," and that takes the acceptance of federal funds as triggering such application, even though 14A does not refer to the federal government?
I mostly like the outcome, as a useful blow in the culture war if nothing else, but I'm wondering if it comes at the cost of reasoning I would normally prefer and, from a conservative standpoint, can also see a conservative case for private institutional (e.g., religious) pluralism that does not subject any institution that accepts any federal funds to EP standards.
Our entire education system is run by liberals -- they've been keeping Republicans out for my entire life -- which is why their one-party shit is so embarrassing to lawyers and other people paying attention.
It's why our universities now resemble something that might be done in North Korea or Cuba.
It's not a two-party state, it's a one-party state.
And a one-party state is embarrassing.
Worship the earth and stab a baby.
You honkies stand in a corner and say nothing.
You Jews shut up, we're watching you.
Castrate the boys and feed steroids to the girls.
Kill the rich.
Eat the rich.
We will identify the inferiors and program you to hate them.
Interesting that the President broke his oath of office by directing the Secretary of Education to break his oath of office and commit a crime by intentionally ignoring federal anti discrimination laws enacted by the congress to find a work around to continue discriminating.
Maybe it should be required on college applications to correctly answer the following questions:
1. Which political party was formed with the express intent of ending slavery?
2. Which political party instituted and supported Jim Crow?
3. Which political party was against women's suffrage?
4. Which political party was against the civil rights act?
The underlying incentive that drives this behavior far more than any ideology is that the institutions at the top of the prestige hierarchy want to maximize their long-term revenue, and the way to do that is to find a way to "sell" each seat in the class to the highest bidder.
Money, money, money!
A Christian named Timothy says that love of money is the root of all evil.
That's not true, in my opinion, but you will often find greedy fuckers on the other side of any righteous crusade.
Blogger Gahrie said...
I can't wait for the lawsuits over those that were not given a chance because they weren't the favored race.
You don't have to. That's exactly what Bakke was. How'd that go?
Yes and the black who took Bakke's spot in UC Davis med school was later convicted of second degree murder in a case of gross neglect doing plastic surgery. Bakke went to another school and became an anesthesiologist with no problems, I understand.
@Sebastian, the case against Hayward is entirely statutory. You are correct that Harvard is not subject to the 14th amendment, because it is not a state actor.
However, because it receives federal funds, Harvard is subject to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, a statute enacted by Congress. What CJ Roberts is saying in that footnote is that Title VI has been construed to be coterminous with the EP clause of the 14A. Any conduct that would violate the EP clause if committed by a state entity violates Title VI when committed by a private actor.
So, saying that "Harvard's conduct violates the EP clause of the 14A," is a shorthand way of saying "Harvard's conduct violates Title VI because it would violate the EP clause of the 14A if Harvard were a state actor."
Ice Nine said...
And take it to the bank - they will find those ways. And it will be another 20 years of de facto skin color affirmative action business as usual before the Supreme's get around again to shooting down the new subterfuges.
Nope. There are going to be District Courts with Trump appointed Judges taking cases all over the country. And they're going to ram this decision down school's threats with gay abandon.
They're going to issue injunctions, because either the student gets in this year or else the case is worthless. And SCOTUS is now lied up 6-3 to support them.
And there will be lawsuits for civil rights violations, costing companies and colleges lots of money.
It's going to be glorious
Left Bank of the Charles said...
How did Harvard, a private institution, violate the Equal Protections Clause? It didn’t, but to understand why the Chief Justice seems to say it did one has to read footnote 2. There’s some verbal gymnastics.
It's time for another round of "stupid, or dishonest?"
Harvard takes Federal Gov't $$$. Title VI says that if an educational institution takes that money
, it's bound by the Equal Protection clause.
What part of that don't you understand?
Ask "Jim Jones University" about it, as they found out in the 1980s it worked against them.
Now, can Harvard just decide to stop receiving all Federal $$$?
Sure
But IIUC, that means no more research grants from the Feds, as well as no student loans, no Fed backed scholarships, etc.
I think it would be great if Harvard decided to do that. But I expect they won't
Left Bank of the Charles said...
“Finally, it is not even theoretically possible to “help” a certain racial group without causing harm to members of other racial groups.”
Justice Thomas seems to be channeling the Zero-Sum Society. Hasn’t that been thoroughly discredited?
Are you seriously trying to tell us that College Admissions are not a zero sum game?
That's such a lame claim that only a moron would try to "play stupid" that way
So does this mean Biden is telling the schools to ignore the Supreme Court ruling??
The Gormogons
@Gormogons
·
GP In fact, it *is* the last word.
Unless you're arguing the Supreme Court doesn't have the final say on law, which you were fine with until conservatives took over the Court.
President Biden
@POTUS
Our colleges are stronger when they are racially diverse. And America is stronger because we are tapping into our full range of talent.
Today's Supreme Court decision is not the last word.
So, a thought:
Were I running one of the new lawsuits against the next round of discrimination, I would make the case that the university discarding objective measures like the SAT / GRE is prima fascia proof that the University intends to illegally discriminate, and that as such that choice, in and of itself, should move the burden of proof from the plaintiff to the University.
You pull in all the research showing that SAT + HS grades really is the best predictor of college success for all, regardless of skin color, you pull in various quotes of left wingers admitting that the reason to get rid of them is to hide their racism, and then put the University in teh position of having to justify their decision to a Trump judge.
These rulings establish that it's a violation of the civil rights of the applicants to discriminate against them based on their skin color. That no University that receives Federal Funds has the right to just dow whatever they want when it comes to their admissions process
I wonder how many $100 million rulings against schools it will take before they decide that discretion is the better part of valor?
tl; dr:
1: Universities are now clearly shown to not have the legal right to take Federal $$ and then engage in their own preferred admissions policies
2: It's time to start suing Universities to force them to use Admissions policies centered on grades & STA / GRE / LSAT / MCAT
Because “[r]acial discrimination [is] invidious in all con- texts,” Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U. S. 614, 619 (1991), we have required that universities operate their race-based admissions programs in a manner that is “suffi- ciently measurable to permit judicial [review]” under the rubric of strict scrutiny
This seems like a great stepping off point for a lawsuit demanding the Universities return to Grades+SAT
Left Bank: Admissions to "elite" universities are by definition zero sum. By definition, the demand far exceeds the supply. The demand for college admissions in general may also exceed the supply (it ought to), but I doubt it. Thomas is correct.
I'll add that I believe your objection isn't with a judicial philosophy or school of interpretation, but with the fact that you got an outcome you don't like. You tell me, when, if ever is racial discrimination legal? If it is, why? Did the constitution prohibit racial discrimination a year ago? If not, do you contend it does now?
The problem with waiting until college or employment to balance racial makeup is that it fixes nothing and generates racial animosity because everyone knows the game is rigged and the beneficiaries are seen as token prices, making it harder for them to earn respect. The time to solve the problem is from before pregnancy so that by the time the person reaches college they don’t need AA.
So, how do "legacy" admissions fit with this ruling?
Oh noes! Those people give schools the big bucks. Can't have that.
I suppose if schools have been sufficiently successful in achieving a student body that "looks like America" the issue will die out as a racial bias.
But it sure ignores merit.
FWIW, I'd like that little perk to be gone just in the name of consistency.
I think the Roberts opinion was the only way forward. If the Court ordered colleges to comply with the commands of the Equal Protection Clause by instituting race neutral policies, every single university would have been placed under continuing court supervision for decades. Right now every facet of university life is deeply racist. Everything from student assignments to extracurricular activities and facilities, to hiring decisions for faculty and staff are influenced by race and racialized ideologies.
Tom: thanks. I assumed from the outset that the CRA had to be the basis in the Harvard case, and as a legal line of argument that makes sense given current law. But then no Constitutional baggage is needed. Yes, he's saying that "Title VI has been construed to be coterminous with the EP clause of the 14A," but in view of the content and purpose of the clause that makes no logical sense. I therefore also disagree with Thomas' concurrence, where he makes much of the Constitution and says: "With the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, the people of our Nation proclaimed that the law may not sort citizens based on race." The EP Clause did not "proclaim" that, in general, and Harvard's admissions policy is not a "law" in any case.
Speaking very strictly, though irrelevantly, the constitutional basis for Title VI itself, unlike other parts of the CRA, is also not clear. Also irrelevantly, I question whether the education provided by Harvard College should be considered a "federally assisted program" simply because some Harvard students, as individuals, receive federal grants, or why any money paid to support any part of Harvard, say for medical research, should make Harvard College a "federally assisted program" at all. As a conservative, I enjoy seeing Harvard get its comeuppance, and of course I oppose its actual policy, but I'm not sure I like the expansive interpretation of Title VI.
The time to solve the problem is from before pregnancy so that by the time the person reaches college they don’t need AA.
We've spent trillions on this to no avail. Take Headstart for instance. People discovered that a lot of poor kids were entering Kindergarten without knowing shapes, colors or how to count to ten. So the thought was, we'll give poor kids a year of school before Kindergarten to make up for this and give them a head start on school. Every study done has shown that Headstart has absolutely no lasting effects and doesn't improve outcomes. Still we continue to pay for it.
While different levels of IQ are a significant problem that the education establishment refuses to admit to, much less address, the major problem is culture.
Asian kids are never told that being successful in school is acting White. Black and Brown kids are immersed in a culture that does say that, and worse that they are incapable of being successful because of white racism, so why even try.
Where was the 14th amendment violation? Since when and by whom are colleges required to make sure that their admissions do not “abridge privileges and immunities…” such as an acceptance letter? How is such a thing a privilege or immunity? Which clause are they relying on? Are college admissions a form of “law” against which affirmative action denied equal protection?
I want to believe Thomas has a point somewhere in his concurrence, but all I can think of is how aggrieved he felt that his racially enhanced school admissions did not guarantee a lawyer as mediocre as himself a spot at a top law firm, and how he made it his life’s mission ever since to sell out to the right wing and do for himself as a token through conservative politics what his subpar lawyering and judging skills could never do for him.
But what a mess this court has gotten itself into, and how predictable. As with the Shelby County Holder decision they’ve open themselves up to adjudicating every claim of unfairness any rejected college applicant can now bring to them, so get ready to open the floodgates on that one.
Who knew that conservatives saw it as their ideological goal to make anything in life fair? Do they actually think that college admissions could ever or could now be made 100% fair? What would that look like?
They have no idea. They have no clue. As the colleges themselves understand full well, a lot of things simply have to be graded on a curve. But these conservative Catholic conformist cracker conservatives have now decreed that admissions at least will no longer be. Whatever that means, who knows.
But I have an idea of the result: A campus that no longer evens out opportunities, but reflects the conformist elitist advantages going into admissions decisions that the majority was always partial to - social as well as racial.
Have fun with this one, Alumni of the Class of Shelby County v. Holder.
wendybar said...
So does this mean Biden is telling the schools to ignore the Supreme Court ruling??
It looked like it. Biden went apeshit today which, with his law school history, was not a good look.
"I'm not sure I like the expansive interpretation of Title VI."
That is nothing new. Years ago people would say Title VI doesn't apply to Department X because no Fed money goes there.
Nope, a Federal dime going anywhere, through any conduit, and everything is covered.
Money is, as they say, fungible.
The decision must be somewhat moderate, I'm inferring, because there are concurring opinions from Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh.
While that's an entirely valid heuristic, in this case I believe it fails.
Twenty years later, no end is in sight. “Harvard’s view about when [race-based admissions will end] doesn’t have a date on it.” Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 20–1199, p. 85; Brief for Respondent in No. 20–1199, p. 52. Neither does UNC’s. 567 F. Supp. 3d, at 612. Yet both insist that the use of race in their admissions programs must continue.
"Your time is over" doesn't ever-rule Grutter, it says "well, they said 25, max, and we're going with 20".
They're enforcing the words of Grutter.
Now, the reality is that the Grutter 5 wanted to punt, on the assumption that the next time SCOTUS would punt agin. That assumption has failed.
But the legal ruling of Grutter is upheld, including the ruling that the permission was temporary, and would go away.
And now it has
At the same time, as all parties agree, 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... But, despite the dissent’s assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today.
Add to that, this
Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. This Nation’s constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.
"Affirmative Action", DEI, etc are all dead.
I was afraid Roberts and Kavanaugh were going to screw us, but they didn't.
If you're in a conservative Circuit, sue any and every DEI program you can find. You will win
Spiros said...
I think the Roberts opinion was the only way forward. If the Court ordered colleges to comply with the commands of the Equal Protection Clause by instituting race neutral policies, every single university would have been placed under continuing court supervision for decades.
Instead they're going to start facing lawsuits, and losing lawsuits, and being forced to pay out lots of $$$ for their racist policies.
Which is an even better way to fix the problem :-)
JAORE said...
So, how do "legacy" admissions fit with this ruling?
Well, for the most part schools give a bonus to legacies in exchange for getting $$$ for years from mummy and daddy.
If a school can afford to have X students, and "legacies $$$" brings in enough money so they can have Y students, then I dont' see a real problem with having Y-X or fewer students admitted as legacies.
Do you?
But the short answer is "legacy admissions" weren't part of the lawsuit, so SCOTUS properly didn't rule on them
Vacuum.
Ann spots a spelling mistake in a SCOTUS opinion. Historic! How did that happen?
I think it's a very strong ruling. It's based on 14A, not on legislation that can be changed like Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It's interesting that Title VI could have gotten to the same place, and judicial restraint would favor trying to use it instead, but that shows the strength of the decision. Roberts used 14A to make a stronger ruling than he had to make.
Roberts did not leave a door open, for conveying racial hints in the student essays. It's a door he could not close unless he said that college essays are illegal. Not a bad idea in my opinion, but they weren't going to go that far.
He noted the existence of this potential loophole so that he could explicitly forbid colleges from finessing it as a way to keep doing what they have been doing. They are not allowed to keep doing Grutter. If he had not mentioned it, then it could have been exploited much more readily. I bet the liberals are very angry that this decision closed that loophole to the extent it could.
"Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven't got: a diploma.”
Why do elite Universities fight so hard to preserve the ability to admit on the basis of race a population of freshmen who, on the evidence of poorer academic qualifications, are less likely to perform well and less likely to earn degrees than available alternative freshmen? I’m with Prof. M. Drout in thinking that altruism is an insufficient explanation. I believe Althouse has observed that to the extent the Universities are acting in accordance with the Bakke theory that AA promotes a diversity in the student body that enriches every student’s experience, the Universities are exploiting the “preferentially” admitted minority dropouts/flunkouts in order to benefit their more successful classmates. Perhaps the Universities (more cynically) calculate that alumni donations will be higher if the “legacy” admissions are not clustered at the bottom of the class?
It appears that Justice Thomas basically took the bark off Justice Jackson.
We're going to see a lot of visibly angry people over the next few years if things go well for equal justice under the law. A great day, and a great display from a great man.
I caught a typo once in Nebraska Reports. The highlight of my legal career.
That dissent makes me miss Ruth Bader Ginsberg. It seems bombastic and quite frankly simplistic. RBG had a much more gentle and well spoken way of pointing flaws and providing guidance for later attack on a majority option in her dissents. RBG and Scalia were a classy pair and we should all kiss them both.
And I’ll restate Steve’s rule of Clarence Thomas, “Any and all criticism of Clarence Thomas s assumed to be racist until proven otherwise.”
Here is my theory. Harvard is maybe the most prestigious college in this country. It’s also the richest. It doesn’t really need to charge admission because of its massive endowment, but does, because it can. Legacies get priority, because they more than pay for themselves. (I learned, not long before my kid went to college that colleges track donations closely, and if you haven’t been contributing enough over the years, no legacy admissions for your kids). Yes, some of the smartest kids go to Harvard, but many of their students aren’t really that smart. Think Hunter Biden, many of the MA Kennedy’s, etc. NOT stupid, with above IQs a bit above the average (maybe 120), but not the 150 IQ students with 800 SATs. It’s the prestige that many seek there. After sneaking through, they are now part of the elite, regardless of their GPA or IQ.
What AA hides, is that many, if not most, of the AA, and esp Black, admittees from the US are the children of the Black elites in this country. Their parents want them to join the elite, but they aren’t smart enough or driven enough to compete. We are talking the kids of powerful politicians, etc. Blacks contribute significantly to the Dem party, in terms of votes and solidarity. The Black elites keep the rest of their community in line, and as a reward, get their kids into elite colleges. Rationally, Blacks should be Republicans, instead of so steadfastly supporting the party of slavery, Jim Crow, KKK, the New Deal, Great Society, Defunding the Police, AntiFA, etc. And it’s their leadership that makes this happen, and they do it to be allowed into the inner circles, including getting their kids into elite colleges.
Asians don’t yet have this power in the Dem Party, but instead try to get their kids admitted to elite schools on their merit. The kids study insanely hard, take prep classes, game their extracurricular activities, etc. They outcompete everyone else. Based on merit, they would probably be over half the class at these elite schools (what the Jews were facing when I went to college). The obvious solution is to eliminate SATs (etc). That just makes it easier to give slots that would have gone to Asians on merit, to Blacks, Hispanics, and even whites like Hunter Biden. Keep in mind that these schools do have quotas (roughly 12%, year in, and year out, for Blacks, at Harvard). It’s just become harder and harder to Anita in these quotas, when the number of highly qualified Asians has exploded in recent years.
It just became harder for these elite schools to hide their racial quotas (that are essentially political payoffs to various Dem constituencies). And that is why they are screaming like stuck pigs after this decision.
Backing up what Burce wrote:
https://studentsfor.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Doc-415-1-Arcidiacono-Expert-Report.pdf
This was the SFFA expert report on the examination of Harvard admissions data:
Notably, Harvard’s preferential treatment of African-American and Hispanic applicants is not the result of efforts to achieve socioeconomic diversity. Rather, preferences for African Americans and Hispanics are significantly smaller if the applicant is economically disadvantaged. While students flagged by the admissions office as disadvantaged generally receive a modest boost in admissions, this is not true for African Americans (who receive no such boost) and the boost is cut in half for Hispanics.
In other words, Harvard is not employing racial preferences in an effort to benefit disadvantaged minority students. Harvard admits more than twice as many non-disadvantaged African-American applicants than disadvantaged African-American applicants. This would not be the case if Harvard eliminated racial preferences, but provided a uniform preference for socioeconomic status. Under that scenario, disadvantaged African-American admits would outnumber the non-disadvantaged African-American admits.
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