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.

Comments

[John]

I have got a solution; make people personally responsible. That is how they ended open racial discrimination in the workplace. You made people personally liable not just their employers.

University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman defiantly declared that she "will find ways to overcome the handcuffs

Sue that bitch into poverty and this will stop.

[Ice Nine]

Why doesn't intentional, selective, disproportionate, discriminatory admission of Blacks that flies in the face of the law, especially when it is admitted in such declarations as Coleman's, constitute civil rights violations against Whites, Asians, etc. And, isn't that then grounds for some heavy duty legal action by someone?

[John]

I would think so. I think that her statement is shows she is intentionally ignoring established law. You ought to be able to sue her personally. She should lose her qualified immunity.

[cynical]

I agree. I think in cases where the law itself has specified that officials may not take action, and they do so anyway, then the state and the office does not own that, the person abusing the office does. Destroy some of these assholes' lives like they destroy the lives of their subjects.

[Doctor Whom]

Shhh. In the context of racial politics in education, you're not supposed to mention Asians.

[Realist]

Ice Nine....you're kidding. Because you live in a country full of fucking idiots.

[Plato's nut]

It's not the country's fault. Remember the contention of the whistleblower's in the case of the New Black Panther Party goons carrying night sticks outside the polling place in Philly that the Justice Department has, for years, had an unofficial policy of only prosecuting civil rights cases if it involves the civil rights of minorities. The country never signed off on that kind of blatant institutional racial discrimination.

[Plato's nut]

Polls consistently show that most American's support affirmative action, but oppose racial quotas. Libs in power ignore the public though. Remember what happened in CA when Ward Connerly got prop 209 passed. The faculty of the CA U. system issued a public statement that the U.C. system would simply ignore prop 209. After that, the % of asian students at Berkeley which had been 42% and which itself represented a throttling of admissions of asian students, dropped to 10%, the strict proportion of asians in the CA population at the time.

Libs defend discrimination through direct or indirect quotas with a vengeance because they have to - if libs can't deliver patronage they might lose their base voting blocks.

[Killazontherun]

Yeah, but how many Asians vote against their own self interest? Perhaps they acquiesce in their voting patterns to give other less qualified people a chance at the good life. Very self sacrificing and noble of them. If noble is synonymous with stupid that is.

[Plato's nut]

I think the battle to make Asians a liberal voting block is still ongoing, in large part because Asians do just fine without special treatment.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

This involves using demographic factors other than race to identify under-represented "neighborhood clusters."

How is that not using race when banks that did essentially the same thing were accused of using race?

[WTF]

Because the banks are evil korporashuns run by banksterz! And the universities are bastions of goodness and enlightenment.

[Plato's nut]

The King's men can do no wrong.

[Raston Bot]

I like Shikha's proposed solution: full disclosure of methods

Then let the applicants figure it out. Anything else would require an army of lawyers and enforcement agents.

[Terry Demeenor]

Those guys really do seem to know what the deal is.

http://www.Done-Anon.tk

[Realist]

The way to "fix" racial preferences is to end them. But that won't happen or we wouldn't have them in the first place.
You can't fix stupid.

[Plato's nut]

Oh, they can be ended, but it will take political courage and boldness of actions. You want to know how to end preferences and quotas? Easy, just use one of Saul Alinsky's rules: force your opposition to live up to its own rules, i.e. demand that quotas be rigorously enforced. When blacks start getting thrown out of the administrative state and social service positions in vast numbers and when jewish students are being denied entrance to elite colleges and to law and medical schools in large numbers, quotas will end very quickly.

[Tommy Grand]

USA USA USA

[Plato's nut]

Yeah, it's great, isn't it?

[Matrix]

Well, one way to make a dent in the practice is to assign numbers to applicants. The applicants name, sex, and ethnicity are hidden from those viewing the applications. They will see the applicant numbers, their grades, GPA, test scores, where they went to school, etc. If one knows a school or geographic location is predominantly one race, then they would be able to deduce it, but that would not be 100%

[Mad Scientist]

How about we stop subsidizing colleges? When all universities are private, their admissions policies can be whatever the hell they want them to be.