Striving Mightily for Optimism – National Review Online has an interesting article by Shikha Dalmia, a Detroit News editorial writer, that strains earnestly for optimism regarding the chances of the Bush Administration opposing racial preferences if/when the University of Michigan admissions case reaches the Supremes.
An enormous gray cloud surrounding the possible silver lining of this optimism is the position the administration took in Adarand, where it swallowed its principles — and that means Attorney General John Ashcroft and Solicitor General Ted Olson swallowed their principles — and actually defended preferences. (Their argument, not a frivolous one, is that their duty lay with their client, Congress, which had passed the legislation at issue. The Clinton administration never paused over such concerns.)
Rooting around among many other tea leaves and goat entrails, Dalmia professes to find some basis for optimism in what was in, or actually not in, the administration’s Adarand brief:
A further indication in the Adarand brief that Olson and the Bush administration intend to oppose the University of Michigan’s racial double standard is what the brief leaves out: the Clinton administration’s argument that the government’s interest in promoting diversity justifies discrimination. The diversity rationale forms the crux of the Michigan case and its exclusion from the Bush brief cannot be a mere oversight.
Probably not oversight, but possibly mere inability of even an administration swallowing its principles to argue, in print and on record before the Supreme Court, that diversity among guard rail contractors is such a compelling national interest that it justifies discrimination on the basis of race. Because Bakke allowed the camel’s nose of diversity under the tent, they may not have this reluctance in a college admissions case.
Stay tuned.
