A Bad Day For Racists

The Supreme Court rules race-based affirmative action programs are unconstitutional.  Fortunately there’s a far better alternative.

Some years ago I was chatting with a close relative about diversity on college campuses.  To be clear, for those who’ve been on Mars for the last few decades,  the word “diversity” doesn’t mean what dictionaries say it does.

From dictionary.com: 

noun,plural di·ver·si·ties.

1. the state or fact of being diverse; difference; unlikeness: diversity of opinion.
2. variety; multiformity.

No, in American English today, “diversity” means one thing and one thing only: differences in skin color.  My relative was taking the side that diversity of skin color on college campuses was hugely important.  I was asking: why?

“Well, don’t you think it’s important for students to be surrounded by other students, of different races and backgrounds?”

“Why?”

“It’s part of an education.  You need to be around people not like yourself, so as to benefit from different perspectives and cultures.”

“Why?”

“How can you question that?”

“I don’t disagree that being exposed to different perspectives and cultures is useful.  What I’m questioning is why that is such an over-powering goal that it justifies choosing people for admission to a college based on their skin color—which is a hugely racist thing to do.”

This person being an extreme Progressive, neither one of us was going to convince the other.  But I went on to make these key points.

• If your goal is to be exposed to different perspectives and cultures, there are many ways to achieve that.  Travel, especially international travel, is one of those.  Reading is another.  You don’t need to force a college campus to have different skin colors in its student body so as to make sure everyone is exposed to everyone else’s perspective, any more than you need to police the aisles of Safeway to make sure grocery shoppers are all “diverse.”  It’s the wrong tool for the job if your goal is to expand your horizons.
• Skin color is only one proxy for different perspectives and culture.  Better ones would be different countries of origin and nationality, socio-economic backgrounds, or life experiences. 
• You go to college to gain an education in your field of study.  That’s why you’re there, and that’s what you’re paying for.  “Exposure to other perspectives and cultures” is nice, but is not core to that mission.  Also, most college campuses these days are silos of conformity when it comes to different perspectives.  If they really cared about diverse viewpoints, they’d focus on viewpoint diversity, not skin color diversity.
• It’s unconstitutional to discriminate for or against people, based on skin color.  The Fourteenth Amendment says so. 

Today, in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court agreed with that last point, and the only question is why it took so long.  It doesn’t matter how valuable, noble, or desirable it is to achieve a certain pie-chart of skin colors on college campuses.  Basing admission on skin color is unconstitutional, and you’re not allowed to do it.   Racist policies are prohibited in this country.

For example, an employer might think it beneficial to the smoothly functioning operation of their company to have employees who are as similar as possible in terms of race, or religion.  Hypothetically, that might even be true in some cases.  Doesn’t matter.  Hiring based on skin color is unconstitutional. 

And now the Supreme Court has finally clarified that fact when it comes to college admissions.

But let’s zoom out a sec.  While the Progressive Left will now predictably go into a collective temper-tantrum and try to make the case that this ruling is equivalent to (1) a re-imposition of Jim Crow laws, (2) the inevitable ruin of the Black Community, or (3) the end of civilization as we know it, the truth is that this ruling helps Blacks most of all.

Lowering the bar (in terms of SAT scores and other metrics) so that more Blacks could be admitted to college, was not doing Blacks any favors.  Lots of studies have been done on this, but the bottom line is that this policy sets up less-prepared students for failure.  Ask yourself what’s better: To graduate with good grades from a less prestigious and less academically-challenging college, or to drop out of a more impressive institution and fail to earn a degree at all? 

Affirmative action programs on college campuses were very good at making sure the incoming freshman class had all the right skin colors, in all the right proportions.  But it did nothing to help the lesser-prepared ones actually graduate. 

The question we should be asking is why a college has to lower qualifying SAT scores for Black applicants in the first place?  Shouldn’t we be focused on trying to solve that problem, rather than sweeping it under the rug by encouraging poorly-prepared students to apply at a college above their skill level—and thus dooming many of them to failure? 

Fortunately, we know both why Black applicants are statistically more likely to not be prepared for rigorous universities, and also how to fix the problem.   Blacks (speaking generally) are getting a raw deal from the inner-city public schools that most of them have no choice but to attend.  Those schools suck, and everyone knows they suck, including the Democrat politicians whose policies caused them to suck.  That’s why those politicians never send their own kids to those sucky schools.  Inner city public schools have been ruined by Union-imposed policies that make them near worthless at teaching kids anything. 

The solution?  Vouchers. Give school vouchers to all who want them, and thus empower Blacks and everyone else to attend schools that actually do a good job of teaching.  But the unions don’t like that, and the Democrat politicians who rely on the unions to get re-elected via massive campaign contributions (and that’s pretty much all Democrat politicians) thus can’t do the one thing that would actually give Blacks (and others stuck in sucky schools) a chance to get ahead: provide a decent education. 

And that is why so many Blacks can’t qualify for college admission without the table being tilted, via “affirmative action.”  And affirmative action is treating the symptom, not the disease. 

Regardless, the Supreme Court has now declared affirmative action illegal.  It’s a bad day for racists who like to judge everyone by skin color.   But it’s a good day for true equality. 

Now that affirmative action in college admissions can no longer be used to “treat the symptoms” of black under-representation on college campuses, maybe we should try treating the disease instead.