Supreme Court Justice Scalia Says Black Students Should Attend “Slower” Colleges

Her research suggests that if the Supreme Court struck down the consideration of race in admissions policies, the share of African Americans at elite universities would fall by as much as 50 percent.

Mother Jones reported Scalia’s comments under this headline: “Justice Scalia Suggests Blacks Belong at “Slower” Colleges”.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who nearly surely holds the deciding vote, voiced frustration because university lawyers could not quantify in detail what role race plays in Texas in determining which students are admitted.

That’s partly because those flagships compete with private universities that can consider race, said Kahlenberg.

The other five have generally been dubious of the consideration of race.

Antonin Scalia, one of the most conservative justices on the Supreme Court, attracts headlines for his legendary, incendiary dissents.

“The university and any government entity shouldn’t be able to use any racial preferences up until the point that they can prove that the benefits clearly outweigh the costs”, Thompson told CBN News outside the Court. While the Court could bump the Fisher case once again to the Fifth Circuit court, it’s not impossible that SCOTUS members could be willing to entertain a question of institutionalized racial bias in 2015. But if the court decides in Fisher’s favor, the case could have far-reaching implications.

A ruling is due by the end of June. Instead, the court simply sided with UT again, meaning the case is now back before SCOTUS. But his opinion on the matter reached an offensive register on Wednesday during oral arguments in a case questioning the University of Texas at Austin’s affirmative action policy.

In the case, the Supreme Court is debating whether it’s time to end the use of race in college admissions nationwide or at least at the University of Texas. Because numerous state’s high schools are effectively racially segregated, the 10% rule leads to “automatic” diversity. His language had many on social media calling him a racist.

The case concerns the University of Texas who is being sued by a white female student who claims that affirmative action is the reason she was not accepted to the school.

So that’s the context in which Scalia was saying schools like the University of Texas might be too hard for black students-a lawsuit about a white student who did not make the cutoff for admission to the school. But the school says it’s used in a more holistic review of the student, and that factor only impacts about 25 percent of students; the rest are automatically admitted by state law. “Maybe it ought to have fewer”, Scalia continued, emphasis ours. “I don’t think it stands to reason that it’s a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible”. In his excellent book “For Discrimination” (a defense of affirmative action), Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy approvingly cites academics who say that the theory underestimates the advantages minority applicants receive from attending highly competitive schools even if they earn lower grades than their classmates. Texas statute caps Top 10 admits at 75 percent of a class. Should UT strike the use of race in admissions, that cap would go away.

The challengers argue that the Bakke ruling was wrong and that the Constitution’s equality guarantee means race can never dictate who gets a place on campus.

Scalia pointed to arguments that affirmative action harms racial minorities and that some would do better at “slower-track” schools. He added that there is great heterogeneity among students of all races.

The school said the majority of those admissions were white, non-Hispanic students, but adds the operation of the holistic review program did increase the percentage of African Americans by 1 percent and that of Hispanic students by 2.5 percent.

The case is closely followed, with an array of business and education interests backing affirmative action. They call such policies outdated, unfair and ineffective. According to the university, this race-weighted admissions program is necessary to achieve a “critical mass” of minority students.

An unofficial transcript of the arguments, by the Alderson Reporting Company, may be found here.