Howard Bashman has links to two sources readers of this site will want to read: 1) a remarkable unanimous per curiam opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit dealing with highly unusual charges, in effect, of racism that a sitting U.S. District Court Judge leveled against the Eighth Circuit. 2) The University of Michigan’s Brief in Opposition to U.S. Supreme Court review of the Sixth Circuit’s decision last May upholding the Michigan law school’s use of racial preferences in admission.
At one point in their unanimous opinion the en banc judges of the Eighth Circuit assert, as though it were incontrovertibly true, that “[t]he people of the United States must have confidence that their federal judiciary operates in an absolutely racially neutral way.”
The Supremes may want to keep that assertion in mind as they consider whether to review racial preferences in university admissions. Assuming they agree with the Eighth Circuit’s assertion, they should ask themselves whether it is more important for people to have confidence in the racial neutrality of federal courts than of colleges and universities, or indeed of any other public institutions.
