“I should note that some or all of these “preferred practices” [of how to better perform affirmative action at Universities] may be inhibited or prevented by the Supreme Court’s affirmative action jurisprudence, which allows preferences only for “diversity” purposes. Of course, no one really takes this seriously, least of all the Court itself; if this had been taken seriously, Grutter would have had to come out the other way, because the district court found as a factual matter that despite Michigan’s denials, the law school gave preferences only to select Hispanics (Mexican-Americans and mainland Puerto Ricans). Taking the tenth Mexican-American over the first Cuban or Columbian-American may make sense from a redistributivist perspective, but it hardly contributes to “diversity.” Nevertheless, universities must at least pretend to obey the law.”" — David Bernstein, professor at the George Mason University School of Law, blogging at Volokh Conspiracy blog
Oct18th2007
Oh, please. If only you were as worried about the current Administration pretending to obey the law.
Why this obsession with AA and ‘elite’ universities?
I’m curious Pedro, what are your thoughts on this paper?
I could write a book. I could even write about in in my blog, if only the damn account was working.
I stopped thinking about the subject years ago. A mostly self congralutoy academic circle jerk hovers around it. It seems like too much energy spent on a matter that impacts such a small group of people while matters of more pressing need are given short shrift or ignored. It feels like ivory tower living, a bit out of touch of how most people live and what is more impactful in their lives.
In the scheme of things the legality/morality of elective wars is a much more important matter, for example, but I don’t see that tackled or given the same attention as AA. Why not?
I don’t see a problem with defining AA or even the possibility of doing without it altogether. But when the topic is discussed I don’t really see the effort of seeing ideas to their end conclusion (e.g. Get rid of AA. Fine. Is on the basis that we’re a merit based society? Have we always been a merit based society? Do we really live in one? Does not racism exist? What of socioeconomic discrimation? Etc., etc.)
It’s an important subject but not on the level of topics such as the Patriot Act, FISA, the war on drugs, the war on porn, etc. It’s not really high on my list, and I doubt it’s high on 99% of Americans list’s either.
Not high on my list either…my main thing is probably educational vouchers.