The Supreme Court's decision to rule in favor of Students For Fair Admission (SFFA v. Harvard) and end the practice of affirmative action in college admissions has produced a ton of commentary on both left and right. The left thinks it's a terrible decision and the right thinks it's long overdue.
I agree with the latter. Here are two quick thoughts on the ruling:
First, it seems to me that anyone who thinks that affirmative action should be maintained in perpetuity is implicitly saying that, in their opinion, black and Hispanic students simply can't compete intellectually with whites and Asians, which itself seems to be a racist point of view.
It may be that in some cases some black students are suffering the residual effects of Jim Crow and the consequent difficulties their ancestors faced in trying to accumulate wealth, but why does that justify discriminating against Asian students whose parents and grandparents arrived on these shores with nothing but the clothes they were wearing.
And if dire economic conditions faced by one's ancestors explain why blacks underperform academically why do first generation Asian students consistently finish at the top of their high school classes.
Moreover, affirmative action is itself a form of racism since it bases benefits on skin color to the detriment of those who are not black. In a society in which the ideal is equal treatment under the law it's past time for it to go.
Second, it's the role of the Supreme Court to evaluate cases which come before it according to their conformity to or compatibility with the Constitution. It's peculiar that in so many of the dissenting opinions, both from the Court's minority as well as media types, both in last year's Dobbs ruling and this year's cases, there's rarely, if ever, any mention of the Constitution.
In other words, objections to the majority's decision seems to be based largely, if not exclusively, on the subjective preferences of those who oppose it, but subjective preference has no place in the Supreme Court's decisions. If the Court's ruling cannot be assailed on Constitutional grounds then there simply are no dispositive arguments to be made against it.
Colleges and universities should admit students the same way their basketball and football teams select athletes - according to their merit. Other factors like economic disadvantage, etc. can certainly be factored in to the admissions process, but there's no reason why these other factors can't be color-blind.
It's fashionable on the left to deride the ideal of a color-blind society, but unless we learn to look past color we'll continue to fragment and balkanize. Social cohesion is incompatible with identity politics.
