The forces who believe affirmative action is reverse discrimination and that college admissions should ban race in favor of “colorblindness” look like they are about to win. The Supreme Court has announced it will hear the Harvard and University of North Carolina cases that challenge the use of race in college admissions. And all in one hour. Either the court has made up its mind. Or, they just want a quickie refresher, before they throw the ca
Emil Guillermo
That could still happen. But likely not.
The Harvard case is particularly offensive as it cynically uses Asian Americans as white proxies and present them as the perfect victims of the “evil” affirmative action. Aggrieved whites have never been a good look for anti-affirmative action plaintiffs. They always lose. But aggrieved people of color who are assumed to be beneficiaries of affirmative action? Suing? Something must be wrong!
But nothing is. Affirmative action is working. Too well for some tastes. But not the vast majority of Asian Americans who are supportive of and in solidarity with other BIPOC communities on the issue of affirmative action. If everyone was totally honest, we’d all be nodding in agreement. Affirmative action has helped our country become the diverse nation we are. Yet now we approach the limits of affirmative action, when aggrieved whites seem poised to win by calling it “reverse discrimination.”
The SCOTUS hearing could be held in the fall of this year, with a decision by June 2023. Forgone conclusion? The court is 6-3 conservative and as political as ever. The only thing missing are the moderate Republicans who have saved affirmative action in the past. They were the ones who were above the fray and understand fairness and justice. People like Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor, both Reagan appointees. Those types just don’t exist on the political high court of 2022. And that is all that’s changed with affirmative action.
The facts and the reality of affirmative action? Nothing has really changed much. Certainly, the Harvard case is similar to the Texas case of 2013. Texas won by defending its desire to assess the “whole student” which includes race. The school defeated the plaintiff, a white woman who claimed she was victimized by affirmative action. Her attorneys, incidentally, are the same lawyers (led by Edward Blum) who represent the Asian plaintiffs in the Harvard case.
