As colleges rush to continue discriminating, the Supreme Court should ban the racial ID box
Legend has it that whoever untied the unimaginably intricate Gordian Knot would rule the world.
Faced with a stubborn challenge, young Alexander the Great drew his sword, cut the knot, and conquered the largest empire yet, spanning Greece, Egypt, and India.
We have a Gordian knot today in the form of the opaque college admissions environment that followed the Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
The ruling was clear: students must not be treated in any way based on their race in admissions; This amounts to unconstitutional racial discrimination.
But the verdict triggered a heated storm.
The White House criticized the ruling (though President Joe Biden never explained what exactly upset him about it), and Harvard immediately revised its upcoming admissions application form to get around the order: The first essay prompt will now ask applicants how their ” Life experiences “look” shaped her in terms of Harvard’s recognition of the importance of a “diverse” student body.
Expect the multi-billion dollar Diversity, Equity, Inclusion industrial complex to rack their brains to come up with plans to circumvent the SFFA ruling.
The continued prosperity of the DEI gangsters depends on their persistence in undermining Chief Justice John Roberts’ dictum that the way to end racial discrimination is to… . Stop discriminating based on race. They will look for ways everywhere.
So there will certainly be a never-ending stream of increasingly complex and secretive schemes that will result in a multitude of costly lawsuits and keep lawyers busy for decades – all while colleges are able to continue their racial discrimination.
The Supreme Court has a choice.
It can allow itself to become embroiled in a war of attrition with the DEI establishment, working to expose every single twisted, clandestine plan now and in the future, each with its duplicity, code words, and plausible deniability. The DEI people would really like that.
Orit can pull out a mighty sword and cut the Gordian knot — by asking why colleges even have a racial checkbox.
Many colleges are no longer asking for SAT/ACT scores because they fear triggering “implicit racial bias.” (In fact, they assume that the existence of outcomes data would increase pressure to admit children based on their racial blindness.)
They no longer ask applicants (your child’s future roommates?) about their criminal history because, again, they fear triggering “implicit racial bias.”
Yet they specifically ask about race?
If they don’t engage in racial manipulation, why should they track their performance?
Might there be a legitimate need for colleges to collect self-identified racial information?
That’s hard to imagine. First, the question of self-identified ethnicity is the subject of hoaxes: according to one study, 34% of white college applicants claim to be a “minority.”
Furthermore, racial categories actually have neither biological nor cultural validity, as neither “Asian,” nor “Hispanic,” nor “black,” nor “white” describe anything in common without engaging in at best ignorant and at worst toxic stereotypes.
Still, granting one theoretically Possibility of a legitimate (constitutional)) If necessary, the Supreme Court could allow the collection and use of racist information, but it should hold these policies to the high legal standard of strict control.
This means that universities – and their regulators and suppliers – that want to collect or use such information are allowed to do so, but they must demonstrate that:
- You have a legitimate need for it that cannot be satisfied in any other way.
- Using racist information effectively meets stated needs in a precise and measurable way.
- An end date will be provided for the need (and guidelines) in advance.
- Schools have safeguards in place to ensure that racial information is used only for the specified need and duration.
That’s exactly what the Chinese American Citizens Alliance-Greater New York asked the Supreme Court to consider in the amicus brief it filed Friday along with eight other education partners, urging the justices to hear an appeal from the parents of Thomas Jefferson High School in Virginia to hear her lawsuit against her school board for racial discrimination against Asian students.
Such conditions would ensure that universities follow the clear instruction in the SFFA ruling that “what cannot be done directly cannot be done indirectly.”
Wai Wah Chin is founding president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance-Greater New York and an adjunct fellow of the Manhattan Institute.
