Stuart Buck sends word of a wonderful speech by Justice Clarence Thomas to a group of black and Hispanic students at Washington’s Banneker High School, as reported by Tony Mauro on law.com.
Powerful stuff, and better to quote than summarize:
Asked by a student about alternatives to affirmative action policies enacted in Texas and elsewhere, Thomas seemed reluctant to respond because the University of Michigan affirmative action cases, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, are pending before the Court.
But Thomas said, “We all have our own reference points.” He paused, and holding his arms out, said, “I am the diversity in my high school.” He was the only African-American in his Roman Catholic high school class in Savannah, Ga., he explained, and as an undergraduate at Holy Cross College he was one of only six black students.
But then he asked his audience, “Do you all think you got a good education?” Yes, came the collective answer from the students before him.
“How much diversity do we have here?” Thomas asked, and there was laughter from the almost exclusively black and Hispanic group of students. Thomas then asked how much diversity of dreams, ideas and aspirations there was in the audience. A lot, was the answer. “You have as much diversity as there can be” in all the ways that are “relevant,” Thomas said.
Read the whole report.
I hope affirmative action is ended. The entire diversity argument is a farce. Does one learn more by siitting next to an Eskimo in a law school? In Japan would they engineers be better if they had someone from California sitting next to them? Its a shame excellence and merit mean nothing today, except in sports.
Diversity is only a smokescreen. We all know that. The diversity rationale was far down the list of reasons supporting AA until it rather miraculously became the solely acceptable constitutional basis for AA. This was true because as we see every post the entire concept is ridiculously easy to disprove. Liberals aren’t normally so stupid, they are just forced to the altar of diversity because of the Bakke decision.
Most AA supporters believe blacks and to a lesser extent hispanics need a helping hand. I think most see it as a moral imperative to make up for prior discrimination, while others inist it is to remedy current institutional racism.
I agree with the concept of attacking AA legally by opposing diversity as so many including John do wonderfully. But I think we shouldn’t forget the real reasons people support racial preferences and attack those as well. As long as people support racial preferences for any reason they will fight vigorously for even such a bankrupt idea as diversity.