Putting ‘class’ ahead of merit may be legally defensible, but it’s sure to prove counterproductive.
Americans endured nearly nonstop talk of a racial reckoning following the death of George Floyd in 2020, much of it premised on the offensive notion that Floyd, a career criminal who was high on drugs when killed by police after resisting arrest, represented a typical black American.
What’s really needed is a reckoning over the reckoning. The Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023), which declared racial preferences in university admissions unconstitutional, was a good start. The Trump administration’s attacks on DEI policies—on and off campus—have been a welcome follow-up. In a Gallup survey taken in 2023, nearly 70% of all respondents, including majorities of whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics, supported the elimination of racial preferences.
Nevertheless, proponents of affirmative action are angling to advance their agenda through other means. If race-based admissions are unconstitutional, they ask, what should replace them?
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (paywall)
______________________
Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and a Fox News commentator. Follow him on Twitter here.
Photo by Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
