Continuing the Washington Post‘s piling on the administration’s weak and flimsy argument in its Michigan briefs, columnist Fred Hiatt claims there is “pretense” (at best) in a position that favors racial diversity but opposes racial discrimination.
This argument is identical to the point made in the Saturday WaPo editorial I criticized immediately below:
The administration argues that ensuring diversity is an important interest. But it contends that the race-conscious admissions programs at Michigan’s undergraduate and law schools are unconstitutional anyway.
I wonder if Hiatt wrote both Saturday’s editorial and Sunday’s column.
I find this view — commonplace now among liberals and in the Big Press — about as compelling as yelling “hypocrite!” at someone who favors sure, swift, and severe punishment for violent criminals but opposes torture to elicit confessions. Or what about someone who favors religious freedom, toleration, and “free exercise” but who nevertheless (!?) opposes “taking religion into account” to ensure that Muslims, Pentecostals, Southern Baptists, and Missouri Synod Lutherans are not “underrepresented” in student bodies and on faculties?
Hiatt believes that because “race still matters!” it is “wrong” not to give racial preferences. He must then either support religious preferences or believe that religion doesn’t still matter.
