As Expected, Supreme Court Kills Affirmative Action...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | The U.S. Supreme Court had allowed colleges and universities to consider race in their admission policies since 1978. That ended today.

The Republican-led court today dealt a major blow to affirmative action in higher education, striking down race-conscious admissions programs at prestigious Harvard and the state-funded University of North Carolina. In a ruling divided along ideological lines, the high court found that the universities discriminated against White and Asian American applicants by using race-conscious admissions policies that benefited applicants from underrepresented backgrounds.

Nothing was said about Whites being far and away the larger number of college students enrolled today. As a write-up in The Nation Magazine put it: Mediocre Whites can rest easier now.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. Joining him were the five other conservative justices. The three liberals dissented. "Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it," Roberts wrote in capsulizing the ruling.

The expected decision kills long-standing admissions policies that used race as a factor in evaluating applicants. The idea there being access to college for traditionally ignored or rejected minority applicants. Previously, the Supreme Court permitted the use of race as part of a process meant to promote a diverse student body.

There is no appeal.

What the colleges and universities that have long supported affirmative action, such as Michigan State University and the University of Wisconsin, will do is anybody's guess. Academia always has sought diversity on school campuses. Republicans of late have wished it gone.

Life will go on.

Ambitious young people will find a way to educate themselves and get ahead, in spite of strong-arm efforts by Republicans to have Whites take the upper hand. It's as a professor of mine once said: "The U.S. will let Blacks and Browns play the game until the Blacks and Browns get too close to what Whites are doing and enjoying. The rules of the game will always be changed along the way."

That was so then.

And it is so today...

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