NLT reader Gary Maxwell, a former Michigan resident, writes in support of the theory that we should not permit blatant discrimination to prevail if only to prevent more subtle discrimination. He notes that the true believers at Ann Arbor will find a way to meet their diversity goals, but suggests that any plan should be constitutional.
The proposition that any plan should comply with the constitution is one with which I surely agree. Most schools attempt to take the unconstitutional road, however. An example in this regard is the University of California. After the Regents voted to prohibit race-based preferences, the University began running a series of complex studies to determine what precise weighting of socio-economic factors would give the University the level of racial diversity they desired. For those who have a second’s hesitation as to whether or not this sort of facially neutral criteria implemented with discriminatory intent meets the requirements of equal protection, simply reverse the favored and non-favored groups. Thus, do you really think that a court would permit a school that had discriminated against Black students in the past to institute a new admissions system which did not overtly take race into account, but was designed with the express purpose of reaching the same racial composition as the prior overtly race-based system?
Wow how about that. Top billing on one of my favorite blogs!
I am now a Texas resident where the legislature has guaranteed admission to Texas public Universities to the top 10% of the graduating class of each high school in the State. Did anyone else notice how WaPO thought this a horrible idea. Why it was going to let in white people who had received a horrible education at a second rate high school just like the preferred class(es) now.
Here is the quote:
"This relatively crude instrument is nominally race-blind and well inoculated against legal challenge. But it actually involves a greater diminution of standards than a conventional affirmative action plan, because it requires admitting both whites and minorities who would be rejected but for the entitlement."
So now WaPo ( insert liberals here as a reasonable substitution) is worried about dimunition of standards? It is to laugh.
The killer is the last line of the article.
"The courts should defer and let the debate over the merits of these programs, and when they should come to a close, play out in the political arena."
Defer means just ignor the violation of the Constitution. Debate means filibuster as in : we still have today 40 votes in the Senate to allow nothing more than debate (or maybe the reading of comic books into the congressional record).
Perhaps when an elected George Wallace railed "Segregation now Segregation Forever" WaPo would have counciled defer and debate?