It has struck down affirmative action in the Harvard case.
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the substitution of race for merit when it ruled against Harvard University’s use of racial preferences in admissions. “I write,” Justice Clarence Thomas states in his concurring opinion, “to clarify that all forms of discrimination based on race—including so-called affirmative action—are prohibited under the Constitution.”
The landmark decision is squarely at odds with figures like Bull Connor, George Wallace, Robert Byrd, and their modern-day counterparts who advocate for different treatment based on skin color. More importantly, it confirms what most Americans already understand: Treating people differently based on their race is always wrong.
In America, judging people based on race reached its nadir with the scourge of slavery. Despite its continued practice around the world, this vile practice wasn’t easily erased here. Hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers bled and died to advance the bold Christian witness of abolitionists in the U.S. and England.
Jim Crow–era laws and their stubborn vestiges took even longer to defeat. Early in my career, as spokesman for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S Department of Justice, I saw the ugly sneer of racism in case after case. Here’s what I learned there: Every illegal racist act must be confronted, and our justice system provides many ways to do so.
The True Drive Toward Equality
Despite the depraved hearts of a small cohort of our countrymen, the dream of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — that each of us be judged by the content of our character rather than by the color of our skin — is more tangible now than ever before. Indeed, the World Values Survey indicates that America is among the least racist countries on earth.
Rejecting racial preferences has been an American ideal ever since Thomas Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” That God-ordained notion took a long time to take hold, especially since Jefferson himself incorrectly thought his slaveholding deserved a pass. But just because someone gets his math wrong doesn’t mean the truth of the equation changes.
The consistent forward drive toward achieving equality has been detoured by modern-day segregation within American universities, even as the Constitution requires “equal protection of the laws” from the government and entities — like most colleges — that accept government funds. Sadly, like a miser greedily gripping his last dollar, those obsessed with racial preferences refuse to let go.
Perhaps now, with a majority opinion from the highest court in the land, we can obliterate this insidious inequity, often glossed over with the Orwellian label of “affirmative action” — an idea that doesn’t even work, as a Stanford Law Review study shows. Black law students accepted though race-conscious admissions processes are worse off than at schools where race isn’t a factor.
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