Testimony Before the Arizona House Education Committee

Renu Mukherjee testified in a hearing before the Arizona House Education Committee in support of the Arizona House Bill 2868.

My name is Renu Mukherjee, and I’m a Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a think tank dedicated to advancing opportunity, individual liberty, and the rule of law in America and its great cities. I’m also a Ph.D. candidate in political science. My research largely focuses on the restoration of colorblindness, merit, and the pursuit of excellence in American higher education. Accordingly, I’m here today to testify in support of House Bill 2868, and all opinions expressed in this testimony are my own.

In 2023, the United States Supreme Court, in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, struck down the use of racial preferences in university admissions. This practice, the Court concluded, unlawfully rewarded certain students on account of their race or ethnicity and penalized others. Chief Justice John Roberts, in his majority opinion, wrote the following: “Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. This Nation’s constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.” [1]

Neither will the justice and education departments under President Donald Trump. Two days after taking office, he issued an executive order that abolished racial preferences and other Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) practices from the federal government, as well as ordered the DOJ and DOE to require universities to comply with the principles of colorblindness and equal opportunity articulated in Students for Fair Admissions.[2] In a “Dear Colleague” letter shared with universities on February 14, the Trump Administration made clear that if an educational institution receiving federal funds “treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law.” [3] This rule not only applies in the context of university admissions, but also in hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, and graduation ceremonies; it outlaws DEI in higher education, full-stop.

Click here to read the full testimony.

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Renu Mukherjee is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.