New York Daily News

SUPREME DOPE

Justice Scalia’s racist rant ripped

- BY ADAM EDELMAN With News Wire Services

‘Most black scientists do not come from advanced schools. It does not benefit them. They benefit from a slower track.’

THIS DIDN’T please the court.

Justice Antonin Scalia (r.) on Wednesday said black science students accepted under affirmativ­e action “are being pushed into schools that are too advanced for them.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who was in attendance, scathingly said afterward, “I didn’t know if I was at the courtroom at the Supreme Court or at a Donald Trump rally.”

WHAT A supremely ignorant thing to say.

During oral arguments in a critical case about affirmativ­e action Wednesday, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia suggested that “most black scientists in the U.S.” benefit from not being admitted into top-tier programs.

“They’re being pushed into schools that are too advanced for them,” Scalia said of black students accepted under affirmativ­e-action programs.

“Most of the black scientists in this country do not come from the most advanced schools,” said Scalia, a noted opponent of affirmativ­e action, according to several reports.

Scalia added that many black scientists actually do better on a “slower track.”

“It does not benefit African Americans” who don’t succeed academical­ly in schools that accepted them under affirmativ­e-action policies, the outspoken conservati­ve justice said.

Scalia’s comments troubled the Rev. Al Sharpton.

“I didn’t know if I was at the courtroom at the Supreme Court or at a Donald Trump rally,” he said outside the high court.

The case in front of the court, Fisher vs. University of Texas Austin, was brought by a white Texas woman who is challengin­g the use of race in college admissions. It is the second time in three years the high court has heard Abigail Fisher’s case.

Fisher (below) has been out of college since 2012, but the justices’ renewed interest in her case is a sign that the court’s conservati­ve majority is poised to cut back, or even end, affirmativ­e action in higher education.

Their skepticism of the program’s benefits was evident during more than 90 minutes of arguments in a packed courtroom.

“What unique perspectiv­e does a minority student bring to a physics class?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked at one point, challengin­g a part of Texas’ argument that says its program is needed to increase diversity at the classroom level.

Gregory Garre, a lawyer for the University of Texas-Austin, told Scalia this is not the time to “roll back student body diversity in America.” “I don’t think the solution to the problems with student body diversity can be to set up a system in which not only are minorities going to separate schools, they’re going to inferior schools,” he said.

They’re being pushed into schools that are too advanced for them. — Antonin Scalia

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