Derrick Z. Jackson, a Boston Globe columnist who, in his columns that I’ve read, has never seen a racial preference (for minorities), that he dislikes, praises President Bush’s recent criticism of legacy admissions with faint damns — by suggesting that he really didn’t mean it.
Bush of course never volunteered during his presidency that legacy admissions are divisive, unfair, and impossible to square with the Constitution and that the result was wrongful discrimination.
Maybe that’s because legacy admissions, whether or not they are divisive and unfair, are so easy “to square with the Constitution” that they don’t even raise any Constitutional questions.
Only certain forms of discrimination are specificly barred to the government by the Constitution. More to the point, NO form of discrimination is barred to private individuals by that document, and should not be by statute.
As to divisive, unfair, and even “wrongful” (by what standard?), that is a matter for individual debate and discussion. It should not be a matter for governemntal regulation and legislation.