Today the Supreme Court handed down a decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. Students for Fair Admissions is an organization designed to fight against affirmative action in college admissions, and today it achieved its goal: the Supreme Court decided that policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina that consider race as a factor in admissions are unconstitutional because they violate the guarantee of equal protection before the law, established by the Fourteenth Amendment.
"While the Court can render a decision, it cannot change what America stands for."
Viewed from afar and over many decades, nothing has yet been able to change America's institutionalized hypocrisy, well represented by the current Supreme Court.
Sometimes true friendship demands that we tell truth unvarnished and undistorted.
The conservative Injustices of Supreme (Kangaroo) Court seem unable to recognize that hundreds of pages of high-faluting legalese cannot obscure the REAL message that their verdict delivers to so many Americans. What are they REALLY saying with those endless smoke-and-mirror clauses and citations? It's simple, really:
"You don't belong here. You never did. The idea you ever could is madness. Now get out and stay out.
The dumb bleeding-heart liberals put their thumb on the scale for you to get a shot at accomplishing something in order to make themselves feel like good people. But we know that if everything was just done based on who was smarter and more capable - you know, *better* - you would never have made it. If everything was done the way it naturally should go, your spots would have gone to the white people you stole them from. They (the white people, that is) are the ones that really earned it - DESERVE IT - because they (the white people, that is) are naturally smarter and more capable. You know, *better.*
White people are just naturally better than other people.
You say you're disadvantaged, but it's your own fault you cannot get over the obstacles you say are in your way. You've always been greedy, never knowing your place, and a whiny victim to boot. Go ahead, prove us wrong. I think you'll find we aren't keeping anything from you, not really. You just have to prove you are good enough to belong here! Here... just count all the jellybeans in this jar. Did you guess right? Oh dear... I didn't think so."
I can hear this loud and clear, and I am as white as an albino polar bear drinking a milkshake. Imagine how some people are feeling today. No legalese can make that slap sting less, or can make that willful entrenchment of power less blatantly obvious.
What are these people going to do when college starts up in the fall... and there are still Black and brown people there? And what are they going to do when those students start lining up at the polls? The message those students will be sending is even shorter, and even clearer:
"Guess what? We do belong. And your time is soon up."
I find it ironic that Clarence Thomas, who benefited in every aspect of his education to his narrow Senate approval to the lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court because of his race, was so fulsomely opposed to affirmative action.
Based on his character and judicial track record, Thomas was not a top-ranked candidate for the Supreme Court. He had the good fortune of replacing the distinguished Thurgood Marshall, the first Black on the Supreme Court. I fear that Ginni/Clarence Thomas will not cease their vengefulness on the Stench Court.
Add one more item to the list of why Democrats need to take back the house and keep the sentate and the presidency.
I was one of the first women to be admitted to an ivy graduate school in science. When I interviewed for jobs after obtaining my PhD I was explicitly told I was only being interviewed because I was a woman and often a token woman hire was pointed out explicitly as that--we dont need more.
When I was hired at an elite institution I was told it was temporary because they had a hiring freeze in place. When I onboarded I found out a white male was hired within a week to a permanent position. I was explicitly told by multiple colleagues that I was only hired because I was a woman.
Working for change and being a squeaky wheel in that environment was exhausting and often humiliating. Equipment purchases delayed because of "budgetary constraints," equipment sabotaged. The same things were faced by my black colleagues. Affirmative action may open doors a crack but there is still so much else that is needed for all to reach their full potential. Mentoring and support and networking opportunities.
But this ruling feels like even that narrow gap that was opened 50 years ago is being shut because you just know that this will be used as a justification for "confusion" about what is permissiible and conservatives will be able to use the leverage of that "confusion" to pressure institutions into policies that return to the more discriminatory practices of the past.
As for the last 6 years, Republicans are again delivering on their promise of racism, deregulation, and clerical fascism.
And they can do this because racist right wing religious extremists took the lesson of the civil rights movements - unite, vote.
While the Left won social progress but sacrificed political strategy to purity tests, pipe dreams, and Pied Pipers. They can do this because in 2016 the GOP concentrated on the Electoral College while Hillary Clinton instead of mending fences in Milwaukee, fantasized building bridges in Texas. They can do this because reliable Republican voters in swing states held their noses and voted for Trump, while potential Democratic voters turned up their noses and refused to vote for Hillary. Sitting on your hands doesn't keep them clean. Self indulgently voting your gut rather than your brain - seeing voting as an expression of personal identity rather than the act of taking the levers of power to fulfill shared goals - sacrifices our most vulnerable neighbors, fragile planet and endangered democracy to savvy right wing operatives hell bent on instituting their dog eat dog dystopia of unconscionable greed. Just saying. 2024. No time to lose.
Dobbs took women’s reproductive right away and today the Court with this affirmative action decision took away from brown and black students in certain elite universities the possibility of leadership…..
What’s next?
You only have to look at the educational degrees that the Court themselves have ‘attained’ to see how important those elite university degrees are…the Court itself generally graduated from either Harvard or Yale…
“While the Court can render a decision, it cannot change what America stands for.”The best statement I have read today. Just saying something isn't so does not mean that is correct. Racial injustice does exist, it exists in all 50 States, and not always against the same subgroup. Unless and until we recognize this as a fact, we will never achieve a free society.
Harry A. Blackmun wrote in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke,
“In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way.”
That for me is the last word on America’s centuries long conflict with race.
There were fascinating reveals about our society within the opinions written by the Justices and responses to the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action. A couple of them particularly struck me as mirroring the country’s divide on the matter with relatively polite words.
Justice Samuel Alito:
I thought that the whole purpose of affirmative action was to help students who come from underprivileged backgrounds, but you make a very different argument that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. The top 10 percent plan admits lots of Hispanics and a fair number of African Americans. But you say, ‘well, it’s – it’s faulty, because it doesn’t admit enough African Americans and Hispanics who come from privileged backgrounds.’ And you specifically have the example of the child of successful [minority] professionals in Dallas. Now, that’s your argument?
If you have an applicant whose parents are – let’s say one of them is a partner in your law firm in Texas, another one is a corporate lawyer. They have income that puts them in the top 1 percent of earners in the country, and the parents both have graduate degrees. They deserve a leg-up against, let’s say, an Asian or a white applicant whose parents are absolutely average in terms of education and income?”
Mrs. Obama’s Statement:
Back in college, I was one of the few Black students on my campus, and I was proud of getting into such a respected school. I knew I’d worked hard for it. But still, I sometimes wondered if people thought I got there because of affirmative action. It was a shadow that students like me couldn’t shake, whether those doubts came from the outside or inside our own minds.
But the fact is this: I belonged. And semester after semester, decade after decade, for more than half a century, countless students like me showed they belonged, too. It wasn’t just the kids of color who benefitted, either. Every student who heard a perspective they might not have encountered, who had an assumption challenged, who had their minds and their hearts opened gained a lot as well. It wasn’t perfect, but there’s no doubt that it helped offer new ladders of opportunity for those who, throughout our history, have too often been denied a chance to show how fast they can climb.
Of course, students on my campus and countless others across the country were — and continue to be — granted special consideration for admissions. Some have parents who graduated from the same school. Others have families who can afford coaches to help them run faster or hit a ball harder. Others go to high schools with lavish resources for tutors and extensive standardized test prep that help them score higher on college entrance exams. We don’t usually question if those students belong. So often, we just accept that money, power, and privilege are perfectly justifiable forms of affirmative action, while kids growing up like I did are expected to compete when the ground is anything but level.
So today, my heart breaks for any young person out there who’s wondering what their future holds —
and what kinds of chances will be open to them. And while I know the strength and grit that lies inside kids who have always had to sweat a little more to climb the same ladders, I hope and I pray that the rest of us are willing to sweat a little, too. Today is a reminder that we’ve got to do the work not just to enact policies that reflect our values of equity and fairness, but to truly make those values real in all of our schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods.
Two directions for action regarding reactionary SCOTUS:
1. Expand the court. Support the Judiciary Act of 2023, "legislation that would expand the Supreme Court by adding four seats to create a 13-Justice bench."
"Affirmative action was never a complete answer in the drive towards a more just society. But for generations of students who had been systematically excluded from most of America’s key institutions–it gave us the chance to show we more than deserved a seat at the table. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent decision, it’s time to redouble our efforts. So, if you’re looking for ways to help right now, here are some organizations doing important work: UNCF Hispanic Scholarship Fund
APIA Scholars American Indian College Fund TheDream.US
As HCR notes, "At Harvard, those on the list to be cut were evaluated on four criteria: legacy status, recruited athlete status, financial aid eligibility, and race. Today, the Supreme Court ruled that considering race as a factor in that categorical fashion is unconstitutional." So one obvious remedy is to sue Harvard and other elite universities to eliminate some of those other arbitrary and discriminatory criteria for making the final cut among qualified applicants, especially legacy status.
Sadly Asians the right wing conservatives used as pawns, do not realize Asians are not considered equal by white supremacists. Our faces give us away every time. We are the first they’ll throw under the bus, just like in the past, just as it continues now against Chinese scientists and students, just like the recent discrimination laws about owning a home in Florida. Just like Trump can make fun of Elaine Chao because of her race and ethnicity, and no one gets enraged. Asians Americans are a diverse group rich, poor, educated, uneducated, different cultures different beliefs were disenfranchised by the few only thinking of themselves, by people only thinking about themselves. That’s where democracies go to die.
For too many years, my brothers and I have considered the republican party to be a terrorist group (through the bastardization of the 2nd Amendment) and like the Taliban/ISIS they have blatantly stripped our rights one by one. They will do anything (including supporting a batshit crazy madman who is a criminal for president) to hold onto power and money. It is shattering.
Regarding affirmative action, my 10 S. Sudanese grandkids stand a chance (albeit still an uphill battle) because we all live in Massachusetts. Make no mistake about it, the playing field is not level and racism is very much a part of the equation. As a group and individually, women understand closed doors, lost opportunities, and outright discrimination.
John Lewis constantly rings in my head “Speak up, speak out, get in the way. Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.”
I always preface my opinions about C. Thomas, Candace Owens, Hershel Walker, K. West, et al, by saying I appreciate their hard work , talent, and material success in face of all the odds. Though they aren't my cup of tea. Today we're talking C. Thomas who is a direct beneficiary of affirmative action who now wants to close the gate behind him after having gotten - his?
Folks need to understand the long game being played here starting with Dobbs. Democracy minded folks are left to have to find creative ways around the Supreme Court which is packed with maga. I feel confident that we will.
Note that Ketanji Brown graciously recuses herself in a case for which she could be too closely involved, unlike others on the Court.....
Thank you Heather, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and the Biden Administration.
"While the Court can render a decision, it cannot change what America stands for."
Viewed from afar and over many decades, nothing has yet been able to change America's institutionalized hypocrisy, well represented by the current Supreme Court.
Sometimes true friendship demands that we tell truth unvarnished and undistorted.
The conservative Injustices of Supreme (Kangaroo) Court seem unable to recognize that hundreds of pages of high-faluting legalese cannot obscure the REAL message that their verdict delivers to so many Americans. What are they REALLY saying with those endless smoke-and-mirror clauses and citations? It's simple, really:
"You don't belong here. You never did. The idea you ever could is madness. Now get out and stay out.
The dumb bleeding-heart liberals put their thumb on the scale for you to get a shot at accomplishing something in order to make themselves feel like good people. But we know that if everything was just done based on who was smarter and more capable - you know, *better* - you would never have made it. If everything was done the way it naturally should go, your spots would have gone to the white people you stole them from. They (the white people, that is) are the ones that really earned it - DESERVE IT - because they (the white people, that is) are naturally smarter and more capable. You know, *better.*
White people are just naturally better than other people.
You say you're disadvantaged, but it's your own fault you cannot get over the obstacles you say are in your way. You've always been greedy, never knowing your place, and a whiny victim to boot. Go ahead, prove us wrong. I think you'll find we aren't keeping anything from you, not really. You just have to prove you are good enough to belong here! Here... just count all the jellybeans in this jar. Did you guess right? Oh dear... I didn't think so."
I can hear this loud and clear, and I am as white as an albino polar bear drinking a milkshake. Imagine how some people are feeling today. No legalese can make that slap sting less, or can make that willful entrenchment of power less blatantly obvious.
What are these people going to do when college starts up in the fall... and there are still Black and brown people there? And what are they going to do when those students start lining up at the polls? The message those students will be sending is even shorter, and even clearer:
"Guess what? We do belong. And your time is soon up."
I find it ironic that Clarence Thomas, who benefited in every aspect of his education to his narrow Senate approval to the lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court because of his race, was so fulsomely opposed to affirmative action.
Based on his character and judicial track record, Thomas was not a top-ranked candidate for the Supreme Court. He had the good fortune of replacing the distinguished Thurgood Marshall, the first Black on the Supreme Court. I fear that Ginni/Clarence Thomas will not cease their vengefulness on the Stench Court.
Add one more item to the list of why Democrats need to take back the house and keep the sentate and the presidency.
I was one of the first women to be admitted to an ivy graduate school in science. When I interviewed for jobs after obtaining my PhD I was explicitly told I was only being interviewed because I was a woman and often a token woman hire was pointed out explicitly as that--we dont need more.
When I was hired at an elite institution I was told it was temporary because they had a hiring freeze in place. When I onboarded I found out a white male was hired within a week to a permanent position. I was explicitly told by multiple colleagues that I was only hired because I was a woman.
Working for change and being a squeaky wheel in that environment was exhausting and often humiliating. Equipment purchases delayed because of "budgetary constraints," equipment sabotaged. The same things were faced by my black colleagues. Affirmative action may open doors a crack but there is still so much else that is needed for all to reach their full potential. Mentoring and support and networking opportunities.
But this ruling feels like even that narrow gap that was opened 50 years ago is being shut because you just know that this will be used as a justification for "confusion" about what is permissiible and conservatives will be able to use the leverage of that "confusion" to pressure institutions into policies that return to the more discriminatory practices of the past.
As for the last 6 years, Republicans are again delivering on their promise of racism, deregulation, and clerical fascism.
And they can do this because racist right wing religious extremists took the lesson of the civil rights movements - unite, vote.
While the Left won social progress but sacrificed political strategy to purity tests, pipe dreams, and Pied Pipers. They can do this because in 2016 the GOP concentrated on the Electoral College while Hillary Clinton instead of mending fences in Milwaukee, fantasized building bridges in Texas. They can do this because reliable Republican voters in swing states held their noses and voted for Trump, while potential Democratic voters turned up their noses and refused to vote for Hillary. Sitting on your hands doesn't keep them clean. Self indulgently voting your gut rather than your brain - seeing voting as an expression of personal identity rather than the act of taking the levers of power to fulfill shared goals - sacrifices our most vulnerable neighbors, fragile planet and endangered democracy to savvy right wing operatives hell bent on instituting their dog eat dog dystopia of unconscionable greed. Just saying. 2024. No time to lose.
Dobbs took women’s reproductive right away and today the Court with this affirmative action decision took away from brown and black students in certain elite universities the possibility of leadership…..
What’s next?
You only have to look at the educational degrees that the Court themselves have ‘attained’ to see how important those elite university degrees are…the Court itself generally graduated from either Harvard or Yale…
“While the Court can render a decision, it cannot change what America stands for.”The best statement I have read today. Just saying something isn't so does not mean that is correct. Racial injustice does exist, it exists in all 50 States, and not always against the same subgroup. Unless and until we recognize this as a fact, we will never achieve a free society.
A sad day for America.
Harry A. Blackmun wrote in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke,
“In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way.”
That for me is the last word on America’s centuries long conflict with race.
There were fascinating reveals about our society within the opinions written by the Justices and responses to the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action. A couple of them particularly struck me as mirroring the country’s divide on the matter with relatively polite words.
Justice Samuel Alito:
I thought that the whole purpose of affirmative action was to help students who come from underprivileged backgrounds, but you make a very different argument that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. The top 10 percent plan admits lots of Hispanics and a fair number of African Americans. But you say, ‘well, it’s – it’s faulty, because it doesn’t admit enough African Americans and Hispanics who come from privileged backgrounds.’ And you specifically have the example of the child of successful [minority] professionals in Dallas. Now, that’s your argument?
If you have an applicant whose parents are – let’s say one of them is a partner in your law firm in Texas, another one is a corporate lawyer. They have income that puts them in the top 1 percent of earners in the country, and the parents both have graduate degrees. They deserve a leg-up against, let’s say, an Asian or a white applicant whose parents are absolutely average in terms of education and income?”
Mrs. Obama’s Statement:
Back in college, I was one of the few Black students on my campus, and I was proud of getting into such a respected school. I knew I’d worked hard for it. But still, I sometimes wondered if people thought I got there because of affirmative action. It was a shadow that students like me couldn’t shake, whether those doubts came from the outside or inside our own minds.
But the fact is this: I belonged. And semester after semester, decade after decade, for more than half a century, countless students like me showed they belonged, too. It wasn’t just the kids of color who benefitted, either. Every student who heard a perspective they might not have encountered, who had an assumption challenged, who had their minds and their hearts opened gained a lot as well. It wasn’t perfect, but there’s no doubt that it helped offer new ladders of opportunity for those who, throughout our history, have too often been denied a chance to show how fast they can climb.
Of course, students on my campus and countless others across the country were — and continue to be — granted special consideration for admissions. Some have parents who graduated from the same school. Others have families who can afford coaches to help them run faster or hit a ball harder. Others go to high schools with lavish resources for tutors and extensive standardized test prep that help them score higher on college entrance exams. We don’t usually question if those students belong. So often, we just accept that money, power, and privilege are perfectly justifiable forms of affirmative action, while kids growing up like I did are expected to compete when the ground is anything but level.
So today, my heart breaks for any young person out there who’s wondering what their future holds —
and what kinds of chances will be open to them. And while I know the strength and grit that lies inside kids who have always had to sweat a little more to climb the same ladders, I hope and I pray that the rest of us are willing to sweat a little, too. Today is a reminder that we’ve got to do the work not just to enact policies that reflect our values of equity and fairness, but to truly make those values real in all of our schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods.
***
Two directions for action regarding reactionary SCOTUS:
1. Expand the court. Support the Judiciary Act of 2023, "legislation that would expand the Supreme Court by adding four seats to create a 13-Justice bench."
https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/05/16/2023/sen-markey-rep-johnson-announce-legislation-to-expand-supreme-court-restore-its-legitimacy-alongside-sen-smith-reps-bush-and-schiff
2. President Obama’s Statement:
"Affirmative action was never a complete answer in the drive towards a more just society. But for generations of students who had been systematically excluded from most of America’s key institutions–it gave us the chance to show we more than deserved a seat at the table. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent decision, it’s time to redouble our efforts. So, if you’re looking for ways to help right now, here are some organizations doing important work: UNCF Hispanic Scholarship Fund
APIA Scholars American Indian College Fund TheDream.US
Thurgood Marshall College Fund
DC CAP
Hope Chicago"
https://barackobama.medium.com/our-statements-on-the-u-s-supreme-courts-decision-to-overturn-affirmative-action-2e161f52b5d1
As HCR notes, "At Harvard, those on the list to be cut were evaluated on four criteria: legacy status, recruited athlete status, financial aid eligibility, and race. Today, the Supreme Court ruled that considering race as a factor in that categorical fashion is unconstitutional." So one obvious remedy is to sue Harvard and other elite universities to eliminate some of those other arbitrary and discriminatory criteria for making the final cut among qualified applicants, especially legacy status.
Sadly Asians the right wing conservatives used as pawns, do not realize Asians are not considered equal by white supremacists. Our faces give us away every time. We are the first they’ll throw under the bus, just like in the past, just as it continues now against Chinese scientists and students, just like the recent discrimination laws about owning a home in Florida. Just like Trump can make fun of Elaine Chao because of her race and ethnicity, and no one gets enraged. Asians Americans are a diverse group rich, poor, educated, uneducated, different cultures different beliefs were disenfranchised by the few only thinking of themselves, by people only thinking about themselves. That’s where democracies go to die.
For too many years, my brothers and I have considered the republican party to be a terrorist group (through the bastardization of the 2nd Amendment) and like the Taliban/ISIS they have blatantly stripped our rights one by one. They will do anything (including supporting a batshit crazy madman who is a criminal for president) to hold onto power and money. It is shattering.
Regarding affirmative action, my 10 S. Sudanese grandkids stand a chance (albeit still an uphill battle) because we all live in Massachusetts. Make no mistake about it, the playing field is not level and racism is very much a part of the equation. As a group and individually, women understand closed doors, lost opportunities, and outright discrimination.
John Lewis constantly rings in my head “Speak up, speak out, get in the way. Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.”
I always preface my opinions about C. Thomas, Candace Owens, Hershel Walker, K. West, et al, by saying I appreciate their hard work , talent, and material success in face of all the odds. Though they aren't my cup of tea. Today we're talking C. Thomas who is a direct beneficiary of affirmative action who now wants to close the gate behind him after having gotten - his?
Folks need to understand the long game being played here starting with Dobbs. Democracy minded folks are left to have to find creative ways around the Supreme Court which is packed with maga. I feel confident that we will.