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Notes -
affirmative action is officially unconstitutional.
the decision leaves open the ability for universities to consider how an applicant's race affected their life "concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university".
About goddamn time!
I'd say I hope for a similar end of AA/reservation in India, but we're even more far gone at this point with low odds of a return. Not as bad as places like, say Lebanon or South Africa, but the rotten practise runs rampant.
Not only is it bad for the commons, because a rational Bayesian does notice that someone's surname suggests they're from a demographic benefiting form heavy AA and thus likely to be a worse doctor/programmer/engineer, therefore they should be avoided. If AA wasn't in effect, then the people who did genuinely have merit and achieved their results through hard work wouldn't be tainted with the same opprobrium.
Further, it's inevitably poisoned younger generations and ended any hope for a caste blind society. I went from not giving a shit about caste myself to seething vitriolic rage after the trajectory of my life and professional career was forever derailed because my parents, with one of them being a literal penniless survivor of a genocide, didn't luck into that magical Scheduled Caste/Tribe certificate that guarantees passage on the easy lane.
I never hurt anyone or took what was rightfully theirs, and yet my odds of getting into med school and then into a residency program became god knows how many times harder, and all outside my control. I certainly won't let my kids fall into the same trap.
India is too far gone, but at least I can relish the distant bonfire of maybe a few of the more egregious grifters being burned at the stakes they built, though I agree with others that this is a step in the right direction.
Edit: Funnily enough, AA in India was nominally supposed to have an expiry date and also limits on how large a chunk of things could be reserved. Funny how that expiry date was decades ago, and now the practise is so entrenched it's political suicide to fight it. You take away their inch before they steal the mile.
It's the same in Malaysia, where I grew up (for context, I am Malaysian Chinese, though I live elsewhere now). The part of the Malaysian constitution (Article 153) that legitimises special rights for Malays was rationalised on the basis that this would speed up their economic and social development to standards enjoyed by Chinese and Indians. The Reid Commission, which helped draw this up, recommended that the article be reviewed in fifteen years to see if it should be repealed. Safe to say that the article is still in place today (as well as all the Malay privileges it implies) and continues to be rationalised by people as Actually Being A Good Thing. This always happens the same way. "It's a temporary measure to alleviate disadvantage, we swear!..." and then it never goes away.
People actually killed each other over this historically, May 13, 1969 being by far the most infamous example. What happened was that a general election was held that was contested on a major scale by non-Malay-based opposition parties (the DAP and Gerakan) that held stances on Malay rights that contrasted starkly with those of the Alliance government. They managed to topple the Alliance government from power in three states, and almost eradicated their two-thirds majority in Parliament. There were victory parades in Kuala Lumpur which were mostly led by and participated in by Chinese, which provoked the Malays, who announced a procession and came from the rural areas into the city. A fight between some Chinese and Malays eventually escalated into a situation where Malays went into the Chinese areas of the city and started killing people. And after this event, there was no correction (or at least, not in the direction you'd expect). The Tunku (the then prime minister) stepped down from office, and the government was re-organised to further favour Malays with the New Economic Policy.
This kind of stuff is incredibly dangerous, and this ruling, as far as I am concerned, is a very good thing.
Ah, China-chads being such overachievers that at least 3 countries need to actively suppress them so that most other ethnicities don't get jealous (Indonesia, Singapore and the US, that I know of).
At least Singapore can offer a reasonable tradeoff of most people being significantly richer than they would be if they lived in any other neighboring country. (The US can too, but not to the same degree)
At its very best, the practise is zero sum, and in practise, negative sum because less talented candidates get opportunities and drag down those who could have made the most of it.
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