Harvard lawsuit puts S.C. nominee under microscope
Affirmative action at play
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s move yesterday siding with legal challengers of Harvard’s admissions policy put a greater spotlight on President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s views on affirmative action ahead of his confirmation hearing next week.
The Justice Department weighed in on the lawsuit brought on behalf of Asian-American Harvard applicants by Students For Fair Admission, a group that has taken challenges of other schools’ affirmative action policies all the way to the Supreme Court, calling Harvard’s policy of considering race as a factor in admissions “outright racial balancing.”
“No American should be denied admission to school because of their race,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said.
The move was hailed by conservative groups, who have touted Kavanaugh’s skepticism at the constitutionality of affirmative action programs, but drew condemnation by civil rights organizations who said Kavanaugh should be pressed to explain whether he would respect Supreme Court rulings allowing similar affirmative action programs to stand.
The court’s most recent ruling on affirmative action — authored by now retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose seat Kavanaugh seeks to fill — allows race to be considered by colleges and universities so long as it is done in a narrow fashion to promote diversity.
“Certainly the information in his record raises great question about his commitment to adhering to the Supreme Court’s precedent,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
Clarke referred to a 2012 opinion Kavanaugh, a federal appellate judge, wrote in a case involving a government program, which he described as a “naked racial-spoils system.” In a newspaper column, Kavanaugh predicted that the Supreme Court would eventually rule that “in the eyes of government, we are just one race.”
The Faith and Freedom Coalition, a conservative Christian group that supports Kavanaugh’s nomination, cited his affirmative action views in a petition urging members of the Senate to confirm Kavanaugh, calling him a “fighter for our American values and our Constitution.”
This is the second recent move by the Justice Department to press colleges and universities to curtail or stop the consideration of race in admissions. Last month, the Justice Department rescinded policy guidance adopted during the Obama administration encouraging colleges and universities to take steps to promote diversity in admissions, including considering the racial balance of the student body.
In a statement, Harvard accused the Justice Department of recycling “misleading and hollow arguments that prove nothing more than the emptiness of the case against Harvard.”