Edward Blum argues, persuasively, that President Bush’s lackluster, split-the-baby response to racially discriminatory preferential admissions at the University of Michigan was far inferior to his brother Jeb’s response. But now, thanks to the Supremes’ decision to hear challenges to racial preferences in K–12 school assignments (discussed here, here, here, and here), he has a chance to redeem himself.
It’s a shame President Bush and the Supreme Court did not embrace the legal principles of Jeb Bush back in 2003 and assert that public institutions can only consider a person’s race in order to remedy prior racial discrimination. If the Bush administration decides to file a brief in these two new cases, let’s hope it won’t make the same mistake again. It should either make the principled argument that preferences to achieve diversity in K-12 grades is wrong and defend it courageously in public—or stay out completely. Just please don’t split the baby again.
Indeed.
