Once upon a time, those who favored racial and ethnic preferences in college admissions at least admitted that their goal was to help certain minority applicants who they argued were underrepresented due to a legacy of discrimination and other social ills. This is an appealing and well-meaning goal, even if such government preferences tended to reward a subset of minority students who were not disadvantaged and harm other students who were less well off—and raised a host of other moral and constitutional problems. When the Supreme Court ruled squarely, in …
It’s an unfortunate truth about Washington: Those who decide the great issues of the day seldom see the practical results of their legislative or judicial handiwork. Court decisions almost always involve lofty discussions of constitutional rights, legal theory, and precedent. So it was last year when the Supreme Court upheld the racial discrimination claims filed by 20 white and Hispanic firefighters in Ricci v. Stefano. These firefighters had outscored black firefighters in lieutenant and captain examinations, which prompted the City of New Haven, Conn., to throw out the results and …
Writing in Forbes yesterday, the Goldwater Institute’s Clint Bolick argues that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Ricci v. DeStafano should result in renewed attention to education reform and the need to improve educational opportunities for all people: “[The ruling] also brought the nation closer to an important day of reckoning. When blacks and Hispanics flunk examinations, the cause is less likely to be discrimination than the appalling educational conditions to which most economically disadvantaged black and Hispanic children are consigned. “Affirmative action” programs that leap-frog less-qualified minorities over more-qualified non-minorities …
