The Biden administration is openly encouraging colleges and universities to ignore a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that forbade discrimination on the basis of race.
Among the high court’s most anticipated rulings of its 2022-23 term was a pair of cases brought by Students for Fair Admissions that ended the practice of “affirmative action” — race-based admission practices.
Or at least the high court purported to end affirmative action. But President Joe Biden is having none of it.
Within hours of the court’s decision, he urged colleges to ignore the ruling, stating that “diversity should be considered, including students' lack of financial means.”
This week the Department of Education and the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department made it all official.
They released guidelines advising schools how to get around the ruling, stating: “We stand ready to support institutions that recognize that such diversity is core to their commitment to excellence, and that pursue lawful steps to promote diversity and full inclusion.”
It’s just a matter of replacing direct questions of an applicant’s race with something more subtle, according to Adam Kissel, a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation's Center for Education Policy.
He said that they would have tried to skirt the Supreme Court even without the White House’s blessing.
“Colleges will continue using admission essays to give special treatment to favored identity groups,” he told Newsmax. “Several colleges have already added or altered essay questions in ways that will make it easier to identify an applicant’s race.”
And sure enough, Harvard changed its application for the 2023-24 admissions cycle, requiring applicants to complete five short answer (200-word) essay questions, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
One of the new questions reads: “Harvard has long recognized the importance of enrolling a diverse student body. How will the life experiences that shape who you are today enable you to contribute to Harvard?”
This is all according to plan, according to Kissel.
“While few colleges will leave a paper trail, admissions officers know what they are supposed to do,” he said. “When an applicant writes about overcoming alleged racial barriers or engaging in service to help a particular group, it is simple for an admission officer to give that applicant outsized credit—with a wink.”
And the “wink” doesn’t merely come from admissions staff at undergraduate schools. Graduate programs and professional schools also are making changes in their application process in order to achieve “diversity, equity and inclusion.”
That includes medical schools.
Anthony Williams, assistant dean for admissions at the Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine at the University of Vermont expressed concern after the Supreme Court’s decision.
“We’re feeling like a lot of the work that’s being done will get pushed away,” he said. “There’s still a lot of energy” to diversify, “but it’s distressing.”
Enter the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) to the rescue.
“Nothing in the Supreme Court decision compels us to deviate from our goal of diversifying the health care workforce,” said David Skorton, CEO of the AAMC, during a webinar with medical school leaders this month. “Lives depend on us diversifying the health care workforce.”
And he was right. Although the Supreme Court ruled that colleges could no longer consider an applicant’s race, it left the door open to consider his racial identity or experience.
“Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise,” said Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion.
However, he cautioned that a “benefit” given to an applicant who overcame racial discrimination “must be tied to that student’s courage and determination” — not solely his race.
And Kissel confirmed that school administrators are pretty much disregarding the chief justice’s caveat.
“Colleges will continue to downgrade or remove admissions criteria that tend to result in fewer nonwhite admissions,” he said.
Bob Eitel, Defense of Freedom Institute president and co-founder, observed that the administration’s complicity isn’t helping matters.
“Rather than suggesting to schools that they skirt the law, the Department should be investigating schools that choose to resist the Court’s decision,” he said.
Civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made an important point about ending discrimination when he received the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize.
“The movement does not seek to liberate Negroes at the expense of the humiliation and enslavement of whites,” he said. “It seeks no victory over anyone. It seeks to liberate American society and to share in the self-liberation of all the people.”
Stated differently, you can’t end the discrimination of one sector of the population by discriminating against another.
Biden should urge us to identify one another by that which unites us — as Americans — not by that which divides us.
Let’s stop playing games.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.
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