Supreme Court Declares Racial Preferences in College Admissions Unlawful. Left Melts Down.
Jarrett Stepman /
The Supreme Court declared on Thursday that racial preferences in college admissions at Harvard College and the University of North Carolina violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution and are against the law.
The Left isn’t handling it well. What a surprise!
The decision is undoubtedly a huge blow to the racial preferences regime that now rules in higher education, and many of them know that. I thought I’d highlight some remarks from the Left following Thursday’s decision to get a gauge on where they are right now.
President Joe Biden said, essentially, that it’s a shame systemic racism in college admissions may go away. Why won’t the Supreme Court just keep letting them be free to discriminate? I guess some things never change for his party.
The New York Democrats seemed particularly militant against the ruling.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., fumed on Twitter about the Supreme Court making “colorblindness” claims. She then mused about how the Supreme Court didn’t rule on legacy admissions, where schools prioritize family members of alumni, and insinuated that it was about protecting white people.
The question before the courts is about constitutional legality. This isn’t Congress. Legacy admissions don’t violate the Equal Protection Clause. What is there for the Supreme Court to rule on here? Also, if Ocasio-Cortez is so concerned with legacy admissions, she should really take it up with Harvard and the schools that have those policies.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said that the Supreme Court justices who ruled against affirmative action are “extremists.”
A recent Pew Research Poll showed that 82% of Americans say college admissions shouldn’t consider race. Rarely are the American people so unified on an issue these days. So, who is the extremist?
Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., decided he’s seen enough Supreme Court decisions he doesn’t like. It’s time to pack the court, he said.
At least he wasn’t beating around the bush too much. When Democrats lose control of an institution, they quickly surmise that it must be destroyed.
“The Supreme Court ruling has put a giant roadblock in our country’s march toward racial justice,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement, warning that the decision could have negative effects.
“These negative consequences could continue for generations, as the historic harms of exclusion and discrimination in education and society are exacerbated,” the Senate majority leader added.
He then said we have a “long way to go” before Americans are treated “equally.”
Racial preferences in admissions, by their nature, cause exclusion and discrimination. Generations of Asian-American students have been discriminated against because of affirmative action policies.
When Schumer says that everyone should be treated equally, he’s really saying some should have special privileges, and others shouldn’t.
The former first lady, Michelle Obama, put out a lengthy statement saying essentially that affirmative action made college students like her feel like they “belonged, too.”
Former President Barack Obama responded to his wife’s tweet, saying that “for generations of students who had been systematically excluded from most of America’s key institutions—it gave us the chance to show we more than deserved a seat at the table.”
But aren’t these now arguments against affirmative action? Some students, on account of their race, have been systematically discriminated against for a generation at elite schools. Perhaps the answer to discrimination isn’t more discrimination.
Harvard put out a statement. The statement said that the school “has vigorously defended an admissions system that, as two federal courts ruled, fully complied with longstanding precedent.”
The next line was interesting though: “In the weeks and months ahead, drawing on the talent and expertise of our Harvard community, we will determine how to preserve, consistent with the Court’s new precedent, our essential values.”
As I wrote just before the Supreme Court decision, don’t think that Democrats and elite institutions are suddenly going to abandon the ethos that led to affirmative action when they lose in court. Racial discrimination in the name of social justice is baked into their “essential values.”
The reality is that this decision, as monumental as it is, only marks the beginning of the fight against the racialized ideology so pervasive in America’s elite institutions.
Ivy League schools have already been preparing to change their policies to ensure that they still end up with the exact racial quotas they want. As Harvard insinuated in their statement, they are going to do what they can to get the outcomes they want.
That just means that the fight continues, but it’s a fight we want. Not only is the principle at stake just, but the American people are behind us.
The legal microscope is now on the left-wing racialists. It’s up to us to continue putting pressure on higher education to not only abandon their officials’ perverse system of racial preferences, but to cease diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that promote and enforce the ideology that leads to it.
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