Race-based admissions are a major issue right now thanks to a brave group of Asian applicants that are once again bringing the matter of affirmative action before the Supreme Court.
As their case is heard and the potential for an end to the overtly racist affirmative action program that many schools have adopted is placed in the crosshairs, a lurking question is if any of the justices will have the guts to speak up on the issue and help the others see the light and gain the courage to strike down the policy.
If one looks at Justice Clarence Thomas’ past comments, it appears that he might.
As Conservative Brief notes, Thomas has hinted in the past that he’s willing to strike down such policies, saying:
“I note that racial engineering does in fact have insidious consequences. There can be no doubt that the University’s discrimination injures white and Asian applicants who are denied admission because of their race. But I believe the injury to those admitted under the University’s discriminatory admissions program is even more harmful.
Blacks and Hispanics admitted to the University as a result of racial discrimination are, on average, far less prepared than their white and Asian classmates. The University admits minorities who otherwise would have attended less selective colleges where they would have been more evenly matched.
But, as a result of the mismatching, many blacks and Hispanics who likely would have excelled at less elite schools are placed in a position where underperformance is all but inevitable because they are less academically prepared than the white and Asian students with whom they must compete.
Setting aside the damage wreaked upon the self-confidence of these overmatched students, there is no evidence that they learn more at the university than they would have learned at other schools for which they were better prepared. Indeed, they may learn less.”
That’s quite a strong condemnation of affirmative action, which Thomas hit from both angles and looks ready to rip apart if given the opportunity to do so.
And this is a major opportunity to end affirmative action. As Alex Deise, an attorney and policy manager at FreedomWorks said to the Daily Wire:
“By taking these cases, the Supreme Court has a historic opportunity to eliminate the ability of colleges and universities to explicitly discriminate on the basis of race in their admissions process.
The Court made a serious mistake in Grutter v Bollinger (2003) when it upheld these processes under the false notion that the educational benefits from a diverse student body was more important than the Equal Protection Clause’s central command of race neutrality.
The Court should overrule Grutter and heed Chief Justice Roberts advice from a similar case that ‘[t]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.‘”
In Grutter, the court affirmed affirmative action, which had been brought up after two applicants to the University of Michigan, one to the law school and one to the undergrad college, sued saying that they had been discriminated against on the basis of race.
It was heard in the 90s, so the issue has been stewing for quite a while, especially because affirmative action was only ever meant to last for a few generations, not indefinitely.
Now, with Thomas being vocal in his attacks on affirmative action and the court’s larger number of at least nominally conservative justices, it’s possible that American centers of higher learning will finally move away from race-based admissions and toward merit-based admissions.
By: Gen Z Conservative, editor of GenZConservative.com. Follow me on Parler and Gettr.
This story syndicated with permission from Will – Trending Politics