The Supreme Court recently heard arguments from Harvard and the University of North Carolina about using race and ethnicity in admissions policies. Project 21, the Black Leadership Network of which I am a member, submitted an amicus brief in the Harvard case.
Justice Samuel Alito asked some pointed and probing questions to the UNC defendants who tried to defend their practice of discrimination when admitting students. Essentially, they believe that because of alleged past discrimination against Black people, they are justified in discriminating against white and, particularly in the case of Harvard, Asian students by denying them admission and instead admitting Black students, despite white and Asian students scoring much higher on entrance exams.
Discrimination, in this instance, is lazy and unjustified. Instead of doing the harder work of analyzing each student individually, they treat potential students as a class and make their decisions depending on the class in which the student uncontrollably belongs.
