Robert Bork has called it “the ‘heart’s desire’ school of constitutional jurisprudence.” The key tenet of that school, according to Bork, is, “If you want something passionately enough, it is guaranteed by the Constitution.” Conservatives are very familiar with liberals’ tendency to accord constitutional status to their policy preferences. But conservatives, of course, have their own passions.
One of them is colorblind government. Most conservatives believe that America should discard all policies designed to discriminate in favor of blacks, Hispanics, and other minority groups, just as it discarded its discrimination against them. Minority set-asides in federal contracting, legal standards that pressure employers to hire by quota, racial double standards in university admissions: All should go. Moreover, conservatives generally believe that racial preferences are not just unwise and immoral, but unconstitutional.
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