What will happen if the Supreme Court rules that racial preferences in higher education violate the law? At many schools, administrators will just keep on doing what they’ve been doing, believing that it would be nobler to fight on for the wonders of diversity (and never mind the litigation expenses) than to stop a policy that makes them feel so good.
We read here that officials at Rice University have proclaimed their dedication to racial preferences. Rice’s release declares, “We will strive to do all we can, within the bounds of the law, to continue to recruit and retain a widely diverse student body.” What that means, I submit, is that they’ll find ways to continue discriminating that they can claim aren’t illegal.
The school also claims that “diversity” is a national security imperative as well as a boon to the nation “socially, economically, and culturally.”
We have been hearing that blather for a long time. The fact of the matter is that if colleges stop using racial preferences, the only result is that some of the students from preferred groups will go to less prestigious institutions (where they will learn just as much if not more) and some of the students kept out of schools like Rice because they aren’t “diverse” will go there. The impact on the U.S. “socially, economically, and culturally” would be negligible — except for the benefit of once again focusing education on learning rather than on the follies of “identity.”