Reason Writers Around Town: Shikha Dalmia on Why the Supreme Court Can't Fix Racial Preferences

The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear Fisher vs. University of Texas, a case that challenges race-based admission policies. The backers of the case, Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia notes in her morning column for The Daily, seem to have a charming faith that if five Supremos tell universities to stop using race, the universities will stop. "But universities will give up their firstborn before racial preferences," she notes:

[T]he instructive case of Michigan's public universities offers evidence as to what happens when race-ban activists get what they want: nada. In 2006, outraged by the Grutter ruling, Michigan voters approved Proposition 2, a ballot initiative that outlawed race in government hiring and college admissions. Undeterred, University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman defiantly declared that she "will find ways to overcome the handcuffs that Proposal 2 attempts to place on our reach for greater diversity."

She wasn't bluffing.

To find out how precisely Mary Sue Coleman "overcame the handcuffs," read the whole piece here.