A Sad History

This week, the United States Supreme Court takes up cases against the affirmative action programs at Harvard University and, my alma mater, the University of North Carolina. Paul Butler writes in The Washington Post:

I got into Yale University and then Harvard Law School because of affirmative action. Some 20 years later, in 2003, I needed Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to hear my story, because she was expected to cast the deciding vote in two cases that would determine the constitutionality of considering diversity in university college admissions.

O’Connor was the commencement speaker that May at George Washington University Law School, where I was a tenured professor. The graduating students had elected me to receive an award for teaching and service, which meant I also would be offering brief remarks.

And so, taking the stage, I thanked the students for their award, and told them my achievements had been accomplished by virtue of my mother’s love, my own hard work — and affirmative action.

Four weeks later, O’Connor cast the deciding vote upholding the University of Michigan’s consideration of diversity in admissions to its law school. I take no credit, but I’m glad that I spoke up — and that there was somebody to speak up to.

The court has changed a great deal since O'Connor sat on it -- as the present battle over abortion rights clearly shows. Butler writes:

For more than 50 years, affirmative action has been one of the most successful racial justice interventions. Despite that fact — indeed, maybe because of it — it’s game over. The court would not have accepted the current cases unless it was clear that its right-wing ideologues finally have the votes to reverse the existing law.

Still, it’s important that beneficiaries of affirmative action acknowledge how it has improved our professional lives, to rebut the critique that diversity in admissions means that unqualified people get in, or that it stigmatizes Black students.

In fact, I believe my presence on campus, along with a critical mass of other Black and Brown students, was a benefit to the school. We provided an integral part of the education of our White colleagues. In my first year of law school, we read a case about the right to a hearing when welfare benefits are cut off. When the professor asked why this was important, a White woman said it probably wouldn’t make a difference in the outcome, but it would be “fun” for the person who had received the benefits. Black students schooled her that there’s nothing fun about pleading with government bureaucrats for adequate food and housing.

There are a great many Americans who have no idea how their non-white neighbours live. Every time people of colour take one step forward in the United States, their opponents reverse that progress by taking two steps back. Hence, after Barack Obama was elected, voters installed the Great Orange Boob.

A sad history indeed.

Image: The Washington Post