Not Tired of Winning Yet CLXV
Rejoice! The Supreme Court, thanks to its constitutionalist and originalist justices, has this day made a ruling on Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 600 U.S. ___ (2023) and its companion case Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, 600 U.S. ___ (2023), held that race-based admissions policies at Harvard College and the University of North Carolina violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
For some reason, no news outlets give a link to the actual ruling. Here it is: Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard
Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion. Concurring opinions by Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh. Dissent by Sotomayor, Kagan, Jackson.
The High Court says:
Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.
Well said. Sad that this is a startling sentence in the modern day.
Accordingly, the Court has held that the Equal Protection Clause applies “without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality”— it is “universal in [its] application.” Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 369. For “[t]he guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color.” Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, 289–290.
However, these and other such rulings were quickly undermined in cases that allowed for racial discrimination when the racial classification is used to “further compelling governmental interests,” Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306, 326, and when the government’s use of race is “narrowly tailored,” i.e., “necessary,” to achieve that interest, Fisher v. University of Tex. at Austin, 570 U. S. 297, 311–312.
It was held in Regents of Univ. of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978) that the “obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a racially diverse student body” were just such a compelling governmental interest.
This is an atrociously stupid ruling, for it holds, simply put, that racism is lawful when there is a compelling interest to promote racism, which there is whenever racism is needed to achieve benefits flowing from racism. Which is at all times.
In the current case, the High Court made the following ruling (“Respondents” here means the University).
First, Respondents fail to operate their race-based admissions programs in a manner that is “sufficiently measurable to permit judicial [review]” under the rubric of strict scrutiny. Fisher v. University of Tex. at Austin, 579 U. S. 365, 381. First, the interests that respondents view as compelling cannot be subjected to meaningful judicial review. Those interests include training future leaders, acquiring new knowledge based on diverse outlooks, promoting a robust marketplace of ideas, and preparing engaged and productive citizens. While these are commendable goals, they are not sufficiently coherent for purposes of strict scrutiny.
Allow me to translate: the Court here is saying that the universities were spinning a line of meaningless jargon, and it set off their BS detector. That is not an official lawyer term, but that is what it is in this case.
There is no way to prove or disprove that racism helps “acquiring new knowledge based on diverse outlooks” or “train future leaders” because these words do not mean anything in particular. They are gas.
Second, respondents’ admissions programs fail to articulate a meaningful connection between the means they employ and the goals they pursue. To achieve the educational benefits of diversity, respondents measure the racial composition of their classes using racial categories that are plainly overbroad (expressing, for example, no concern whether South Asian or East Asian students are adequately represented as “Asian”); arbitrary or undefined (the use of the category “Hispanic”); or underinclusive (no category at all for Middle Eastern students). The unclear connection between the goals that respondents seek and the means they employ preclude courts from meaningfully scrutinizing respondents’ admissions programs.
Allow me to translate: the University race categories have no relation to reality, to any particular culture, ethnicity, background, community, nothing. More gas.
The court displays a trifle of judicial wryness:
The universities’ main response to these criticisms is “trust us.” They assert that universities are owed deference when using race to benefit some applicants but not others.
And
Respondents’ admissions programs also lack a “logical end point” as Grutter required. 539 U. S., at 342.
Reading the precis of the legal history of the ideal of equal protection is a sad business, moving from…
“What is this,” we said of the Clause in 1880, “but declaring that the law in the States shall be the same for the black as for the white; that all persons, whether colored or white, shall stand equal before the laws of the States?” Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303, 307–309.
… to doctrine of “separate but equal” (which was racist) which by alchemical metempsychosis was transmogrified into “diversity, inclusion, equity” (which was also racist).
The court does not say, but both of these doctrines, racist and also racist, issue from the malign minds of the Progressives, those Anti-Americans of American since before the days of Lincoln.
The majority opinion continues:
“… our precedents have identified only two compelling interests that permit resort to race-based government action.
One is remediating specific, identified instances of past discrimination that violated the Constitution or a statute. See, e.g., Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1, 551 U. S. 701, 720 (2007); Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U. S. 899, 909–910 (1996); post, at 19–20, 30–31 (opinion of THOMAS, J.).
The second is avoiding imminent and serious risks to human safety in prisons, such as a race riot. See Johnson v. California, 543 U. S. 499, 512–513 (2005).
Neither of these two conditions obtain at Harvard and University of North Carolina.
Justice Sotomayor penned a dissent, of which I read only the first paragraph:
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment enshrines a guarantee of racial equality. The Court long ago concluded that this guarantee can be enforced through race-conscious means in a society that is not, and has never been, colorblind.
As a matter of logic, the terms “colorblind” and “racial equality” means precisely the same thing. This sentence, in other words, says Racism is Antiracism. A is non-A.
This is legal reasoning that is so sub-par, that no First Year would dare say something so nauseatingly absurd. Sotomayor herself was elevated beyond her merit to this high position, thanks to Critical Race Theory, and hence was never expected to perform her job. As a jurist, she is an Hispanic.
(Which, please note, is not a race, merely a voting bloc. Southern Europeans are European.)
Sotomayor herself is living evidence of the imprudence of the unconstitutional absurdities she proposes. She says the law should lay a finger on the scales of justice, in order to use injustice to create justice, use inequality to create equality.
I could not read further. As an ex-attorney, I am simply too disgusted and embarrassed for my erstwhile profession to behold such oozy mental mush issue from any lawyerly brain in lieu of sharp and crisp legal reasoning.
I will not even attempt to read Justice Jackson’s opinion. I have heard from other commentators that she beclowns herself. Since she was appointed due to her sex and race, not due to any alleged judicial attainment, we can assume that, as a jurist, she is a negress.
Another long nightmare of Supreme Court overreach and abuse has been curtailed. The shadow will take a new shape and grow again, but, for now, the light hath triumphed.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
