In Hawaii for a panel discussion of the racially restrictive admissions policy of the Kamehameha Schools (see my discussion here, here, and here), Justice Stephen Breyer stated that he favors “allow[ing] a little affirmative action” in order to prevent people from underrepresented groups looking at the leadership of the military or corporations and saying, “They’re not us.”
Interestingly, the rationale Breyer gave for the “little” affirmative action he would allow seems to have less to do with the value of “diversity” inside institutions than with “bring[ing] into a democratic society those who have been oppressed or have been victims of “invidious discrimination.” (Of course it may be that the reason he believes it important to bring them is so that they can provide “diversity” to those already there.)
Breyer apparently didn’t say how much “a little” was, or whether a lot here, there, and there could be allowed so long as it amounted only to “a little” overall.
Nor, I might add, looking at this post some four months later, did Breyer say his his rationale for racial preference could be squared with the the clear rejection of the compensatory rationale by Justice Powell in Bakke.