It is becoming increasingly clear, as noted in several recent posts, that for a wide swath of elite opinion in this country the principle of racial equality now requires, rather than bars, racial discrimination. The core value is no longer an absence of discrimination; it is the presence of “parity.”
Indeed, this view has become so entrenched in some quarters that it is now regarded as fact and not opinion. One aspect of this new orthodoxy is that good (which is to say, “inclusive”) intentions trump (otherwise) bad procedures. A good example is the New York Times this morning — in a news story, not an (overt) opinion piece, that discusses “a new offensive” being waged by the Center for Equal Opportunity and the American Civil Rights Institute “against scholarships and summer programs intended to ease minority students into college life.”
How could anyone, the article virtually screams, be against programs with intentions as pure as this? These “minority scholarships and summer programs,” the article continues, are “often intended to encourage students who might otherwise not go to college.”
Well, yes. No one denies that. The question is whether that intent immunizes racial discrimination. What if it were determined that, say, a lower proportion of Catholic inner city youth attended college that Jews or Protestants. Could the state fund scholarships limited to Catholics?
Some colleges contend that their programs are not only consistent with federal law but essential to creating campuses in which minorities are not grossly underrepresented.
[….]
“This a core principle for us,” said Marvin Krislov, general counsel for the University of Michigan.
Such programs often explicitly bar white students, making them “extremely difficult to defend” in court, the Department of Education says.
“It’s unfortunate that the universities are caving in like this instead of defending what they believe in,” said Angelo N. Ancheta, legal director for the Civil Rights Project at Harvard. “It would be one thing if the Supreme Court came out with a ruling that said `Your policy is unconstitutional.’ But until that happens, why would you abandon it?”
Perhaps because discrimination on the basis of race is wrong and at least presumptively unconstitutional.
