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Looks like the Supreme Court is finally getting around to challenging affirmative action. Of course we don't know what the ruling will be, but with the decisions so far I'm hopeful they strike down AA, or at least put a dent in it.
I'm surprised this isn't a bigger deal as I haven't heard much buzz about it from my liberal friends. According to the article, 74% of Americans don't believe in using race as a factor in college admissions (although that question and whether or not Affirmative Action should be struck down likely have far different approval rates.) It may be a Roe situation where they really don't care until one of the sacred cows is gored because they believe in their own invincibility. I'm curious if AA does get struck down, will we have the same reaction as Roe?
I'm sure some people will be upset, but do you think liberal states will start changing their constitutions to allow race filtering for college admissions? Or is the political will for AA just gone on both sides of the aisle?
Changing state constitutions can't help if it's either the 14th Amendment or Federal Law that any decision is based on. And there probably are not the votes to change the Civil Rights Acts to specifically allow for this.
Instead, if the Court decides that "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." and bans all racial discrimination in admissions including affirmative action (and no, Harvard, we're not fooled by your 'Asians have bad personalities' claims), the response will be just to ignore it. The administrative agencies will continue to allow it, or turn a blind eye. The lower courts will endorse this. Maybe in another 10 years another case will make it to SCOTUS, but in the meantime nothing changes.
The US court system's "binding precedents" work mainly through respect for the institution by those below; courts and agencies are expected to follow precedent even when they'd rather not. But the people pushing these policies see them as the highest moral imperative and will put their desires above any such institutional controls.
Do you think federal institutions outright ignoring a SC decision is more likely than just using other factors to get to a similar outcome, as proposed below?
To me it seems far to risky for these universities to continue to do AA as-is if it gets struck down, but I wouldn't be surprised if they shift to overwhelmingly accepting students that signal woke/leftist ideology in their applications.
They'll use 'other factors' which largely proxy for race (or are entirely proxies for race, in the case of the 'other factors' being subjective). And the (lower) courts will take a blind eye to this. They'll probably also try accept wokies only, but that signal is too easy for white true-believers to display and too easy for the unscrupulous of any race to fake.
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