The Return Of Sub Judice Redux: The Sequel

“D” responds — still temperate, still wrong.

I argued that “D” was wrong to say that on Grutter+1 one could look at the entering class at Anywhere U. and see a “sea of white faces.” My point was that, for the first few years, you might indeed see fewer “diverse” faces at highly selective flagship institutions, such as Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, UVa, etc., but that if you looked across the state (as he had originally said) you would see that the “diverse” were still in entering classes, just at less selective schools. Based on the experience in Calif., the numbers would begin to rise again shortly even at the selective campuses.

“D” asks here

*if* you admitted an entering class that contained no african americans or latinos, and you looked around at that class on the first day of classes, *wouldn’t* you feel that something was missing? That is, isn’t racial diversity at a University intuitively appealing? And, I argued, if you don’t think so, you would be in the distinct minority. Rosenberg apparently disagrees.

Nope. I agree something would be wrong. What would be wrong, very wrong, is that black and Latino students were not able to perform well enough to meet the same admissions standards expected of everyone else. Putting a thumb on one side of the admissions scale is not a solution to that problem, and in fact perpetuates it. Of course, there is no evidence that ending preferences would actually result in entering classes with “no african americans or latinos.” There would be fewer at flagship campuses, but not none. Even Michigan doesn’t argue that.

Regarding Bob Jones, “D” asks, “Isn’t the implicit principle of Bob Jones … that affirmative action is not like racial discimination?” No, I don’t believe it is. I believe the Bob Jones principle is that discrimination on the basis of race violates such a fundamental value, that it so violates “public policy,” that no organization that engages it can receive an educational, religious, or charitable tax deduction. It seems to me impossible to argue that racial preferences do not involve discrimination based on race. What must be argued is that that discrimination is justified by a compelling public interest.

“D” then asks why “‘principled defenders of the Bob Jones result’ would have to agree that no institution that gives money to minorities can be charitable?” But of course no one argues that institutions can’t give money to minorities. What we argue is that the state and its agents cannot give money exclusively to minorities, a principle the Supremes let stand when they refused grant cert. in Podberesky v. Kirwan, 38 F.3d 147 (4th Cir. 1994), cert. denied, 115 S. Ct. 2001 (1995). Since that is precisely what the Gates Foundation does with its college scholarships, it does not strike me as at all a stretch to say that the principle of Bob Jones should call the Gates tax exemption into question.

“D” is right, I believe, to observe that responsible opinion (or something very similar) in this country abhors bans on interracial dating, while a substantial segment of responsible opinion (including a preponderance of elite opinion) favors racial discrimination to promote “diversity.” He concludes from this, again I believe, that racial discrimination to promote “diversity” therefore is not really racial discrimination, since many good people favor it and good people do not favor discrimination. I conclude, by contrast, that these good people value “diversity” more than they value the principle of non-discrimination, and so are perfectly willing to sacrifice the latter for the former. In fact, that may already have happened, with the proponents of “diversity” having trespassed on the colorblind principle for so long that they have already taken adverse possession of it.