Scores of amicus briefs were recently filed with the Supreme Court in support of the challenge by Asian-American students to Harvard’s racially discriminatory admissions policy that holds Asian-American and white applicants to far higher standards than black and Hispanic applicants. The facts, the law, and the composition of the present Court render a fair probability that racial discrimination in college admissions will be curbed, if not eliminated.
Regardless of the outcome in SFFA v. Harvard, however, racial discrimination will continue to run rampant throughout academia. In fact, overt racial discrimination goes well beyond admissions policies and is expanding rapidly throughout college programs.
More than 75 colleges nationwide offer separate graduation ceremonies based on race, ethnicity, or sexual identity. Separate dormitories, “safe spaces,” orientations, trainings, recreational activities, and even scholarships continue to mushroom throughout higher education, especially since the death of George Floyd.
No, neither the 1964 Civil Rights Act nor the 14th Amendment was repealed while you were sleeping. State-sponsored segregation remains unlawful, and it’s just as odious and damaging as when George Wallace famously proclaimed, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”
Schools defend the practice by asserting that the events aren’t segregated in the traditional sense, i.e., the segregation isn’t rigorously enforced by school authorities. Indeed, there’s no need. On today’s “woke” campuses, segregation is self-policed — often ruthlessly — in accordance with the unyielding imperatives of “identity.”
Segregation and critical race training have become ubiquitous in colleges, big businesses, and government. We rightly ended segregation because it was bigoted, poisonous, and backward. It still is, even if disguised as racial progress.