Are Supreme Court justices falling for a silly notion?
Are Justices John G. Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett tone deaf or is something sinister going on here?
As someone who benefited greatly from affirmative action, Thomas’ longtime opposition to the program has always been head-scratching. As for Barrett, does she honestly believe affirmative action played no role in her admission into the University of Notre Dame’s law school, an institution that did not begin opening itself up to women in any significant way until 1972?
Is she so obtuse that she doesn’t realize there are few groups that have enjoyed the fruits of affirmative action since its creation more than white women?
What is the motive behind banning the use of race as a factor in college admissions, especially at a time when the numbers of students of color on the campuses of many predominantly white colleges and universities leave a great deal to be desired?
Not only are the numbers of students of color paltry; it seems that diversity, equity, and inclusion officials are often not given the resources they need to perform the duties and responsibilities for which they have been charged.
For example, a private university here in greater Columbus recently terminated its chief diversity officer nine
months after being hired. The reason for the termination is unclear, yet administrators there insist they are committed to matters of DEI.
There is a bit of irony in the six judges’ opposition to Affirmative Action. Are they wholly unaware of the birth, development and rise of higher education and its relationship to American slavery?
Surely Thomas should know. Five of the six judges attended universities
that owe their existence to indentured servitude. Some of the country’s most prestigious institutions benefitted mightily from slave labor, both in the northeast such as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale universities, as well as in the southern region of the United States, such as the College of William and Mary, Vanderbilt, and Duke universities, and of course Mr. Jefferson’s university, formally known as the UVA.
Interestingly, in the minds of white planters and the white ruling class, enslaved Blacks proved to be the perfect source of man and womanpower when it came to building those so-called great institutions of higher learning precisely because of their race, yet centuries later when the doors of admissions were finally opened to their descendants, white elites, over the course of generations have gone to great lengths to block those avenues of progress on which Blacks and other historically marginalized groups have sought to capitalize.
But why?
Could it be that Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett have bought into this silly notion that the election of Barack Obama in 2008 signaled the beginning of a post-racial America?
Was, in their minds, President Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris further confirmation? Let’s hope those who sit on the highest tribunal in the land haven’t succumb to such lazy and unsophisticated thinking.
I can think of no accomplishment that grew out of the modern civil rights movement that its opponents haven’t tried to roll back since the Reagan revolution swept the country during the early to late 1980s.
I fear the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action sets the stage for a return to an America where certain people were to be seen and not heard. Could banning affirmative action in hiring be far behind?
Judson L. Jeffries is professor of African American and African Studies at the Ohio State University and a regular contributor to the Columbus Dispatch.