On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that colleges and universities can no longer take race into consideration as a specific basis for granting admission, overturning long-standing precedent that has benefited Black and Latino students in higher education.
The publisher and editorial board of the Times Weekly strongly condemn this ruling as not only a cruel misapplication of the Fourteenth Amendment, but also a tragedy for all Americans, as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in her blistering dissent.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the conservative majority, saying the Harvard and University of North Carolina admissions programs before the Court violated the Equal Protection Clause. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan dissented.
To be clear–despite the decades-long spin from the GOP and its propaganda outlets–Affirmative Action has never required colleges to make totally race-based decisions. Not. Ever. No school has ever been required to admit applicants based solely on race. Not. Ever. Affirmative Action only mandated that race be included as one of the more than 30 specific factors colleges use to make decisions.
In fact, the only college admissions based purely on race were ‘’white-only” policies. And ironically, the Trump-appointed Kavanaugh, Barrett and Gorsuch justices illustrate this white preference perfectly. Judicial expertise and competence didn’t matter; only their white race (and their loyalty to the MAGA cult) was important.
(Uncle) Clarence Thomas, the only Black male Justice, personally profited from Affirmative Action in both his Yale Law School admission and his ascension to the Court. But now, voting with the majority, he demands that we pretend we live in a race-blind society, where those who have profited from four centuries of discrimination (white Americans) are now somehow in need of protection from those discrimination has harmed (everyone else).
The Times Weekly concurs with Associate Justice Jackson, the newest member of the High Court and the only Black woman ever appointed to date. She writes that, “With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces “colorblindness for all” by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.” (Read the full text of her dissent here.)
This shameful ruling comes on the heels of allegations of misconduct against several conservative justices, who have apparently accepted expensive trips and gifts from billionaire donors who later bring matters before the Court. Once thought to be above partisanship and political corruption, the Court is apparently now comprised (as Senator Chris Murphy writes) “of six right wing politicians, masquerading as judges, gleefully imposing their politics on the country by fiat, and unremorsefully living lives of leisure subsidized by billionaires with interests before the court.”
The Times Weekly applauds Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzer for his strong statement in defense of equity and justice, saying, “The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Affirmative Action is a travesty — reversing nearly 45 years of precedent that advances equity throughout our country’s higher education institutions. The damage caused to Black communities by slavery and Jim Crow Laws, to Hispanics and Native Americans by a legacy of discrimination and oppression has not nearly been reversed.”
As former First Lady Michelle Obama, a graduate of both Princeton and Harvard, writes, “It wasn’t just the kids of color who benefited [from diversity in the student body], either. Every student who heard a perspective they might not have encountered, who had an assumption challenged, who had their minds and their hearts opened gained a lot as well.”
In that spirit, the Times Weekly urges all colleges, universities and institutes of higher learning to publicly state your commitment to creating healthy and diverse academic environments for all students, and to recognize that Black and BIPOC students bring their unique lived experiences to your campuses, and create vibrant learning opportunities for everyone.
We further urge every resident age 18 and up to register and vote as if your life depends on it, because it very well might. The Gorsuch, Barrett and Kavanaugh appointments are a direct result of a corrupt and hyper-partisan Trump presidency. If a MAGA president makes the next appointments to the Court, we could be looking at rulings to overturn Brown vs the Board Education, or worse.
We can tell from their current opinions that Justices Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Roberts, Barrett and Kavanaugh are already in agreement with the 1857 Dred Scott ruling of Chief Justice Roger Taney, who infamously wrote, “A Black man has no rights that a white man need respect.”
Vote, and restore the Court to justice and integrity.
