What does the Supreme Court ending affirmative action mean? Here’s a variety of takes | Opinion
Level playing field for white people
Conservatives do believe that systemic racism unfairly disadvantages some Americans — or did, right up until the Supreme Court leveled the playing field for white people this week.
What a chasm there is between those of us who see current day racial injustice warping just about every corner of our lives, and those outraged by any affirmative action other than the kind that has always worked so well for C-student legacies. Then we call this tender treatment “merit,” so as not to hurt our own feelings.
- Melinda Henneberger, The Star
Ruling a great day for America
The Supreme Court’s ruling banning racial discrimination in collegiate admissions was a great day for America and could go a long way toward the ultimate fulfillment of Martin Luther King’s dream that “my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” If only.
Unfortunately, I am less sanguine than some conservatives— particularly those who do not work inside the academy — because I realize that so-called antiracist “preferences” are so deeply entrenched into the academic mindset that an urgent search for legal loopholes and other workarounds re-enabling “check box” discrimination will now commence in earnest. The sad fact is that far too many college administrators have invested too many years building too much power and influence by implanting racial and other discriminatory policies and procedures into the very roots of their institutions to pass silently as ships in the night.
Like Winston Churchill before me, I believe that “now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
- Stephen W. Pruitt, Ph.D., Arvin Gottlieb/Missouri Endowed Chair of Business Economics and Finance, Henry W. Bloch School of Management, The University of Missouri-Kansas City, Special to The Star
The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and do not represent those of the Bloch School of Management, the University of Missouri System or the Arvin Gottlieb Charitable Foundation.
Yes, there are obviously ‘Trump judges’
Writing the Supreme Court’s majority opinion overturning President Joe Biden’s student loan relief program, John Roberts sniffed: “It has become a disturbing feature of some recent opinions to criticize the decisions with which they disagree as going beyond the proper role of the judiciary.”
Gee, Chief Justice, that couldn’t be because GOP elected officials are crowing about their political victories at the court right and left these days, could it? Or all the conservative commentators thanking Donald Trump for reshaping the judiciary?
There could scarcely be a clearer signal that, yes, there are indeed “Trump judges,” just as there are Obama judges and Bush judges and Clinton judges. This week’s verdicts saying web designers are A-OK to discriminate against LGBT clients while at the same time insisting bigotry just isn’t a real thing anymore when it comes to college admissions are a head-spinning exercise in illogic that will take another generation to iron out.
Before Senate Republicans stole two seats on the high court from the moderate American middle, Roberts could coast along with his comfortable 5-4 conservative majority and pretend to “call balls and strikes.” He now sits beside five hard-right ideologues who don’t mind shredding precedent. And he’s lost control.
John Roberts’ Supreme Court is the first in modern history to reverse fundamental personal and civil rights protections for women and minorities. His place in the history books has been written.
- Derek Donovan, The Star
Roger Marshall, ‘objective law and sanity’
One of the odder takes in the aftermath of this week’s Supreme Court decisions came via Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas. Friday morning on Twitter, Marshall signaled his approval of rulings against affirmative action, student loan debt relief and a Colorado LGBTQ antidiscrimination law.
“Thank you Leader McConnell and President Trump,” Marshall wrote, “for restoring the Supreme Court to objective law and sanity.”
Put aside — for just a moment — the surreality of thanking Donald Trump for restoring “law and sanity” to any aspect of American life. The truly bizarre word here is “objective.”
That word signals a belief that there is only one correct and neutral way to look at policy, law and the Constitution in America. But that’s not really true, is it? These issues are contested, constantly. That contest is what democracy is all about. That Republicans have a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court doesn’t mean their views are objective, or even sane. It just means they have the power to enforce their worldview. This week’s rulings won’t end the debates.
- Joel Mathis, Special to The Star
A “not welcome” sign to minority students
Whether or not you believe that the Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action will place an undue burden on ethnic minorities, one thing is clear. It sends a “not welcome” message to some minorities, first-generation students and minority students from small town America.
Studies show that these students often don’t see themselves in college or finish college for psychological reasons that go beyond finances. When no one in your peer group is talking about college and no one in your immediate family went, you are at a distinct disadvantage, says the Department of Education’s “Students Whose Parents Did Not Go to College” report.
When race was a partial determinant in who got into colleges, students not on the traditional college trajectory had something to hope for. Now? I expect to see a decrease in not only the number of students of color who get in, but also the number who apply in the first place.
- Yvette Walker, The Star
