Scalia: Affirmative Action Makes School Too Tough for Blacks

Antonin Scalia, the U.S. Supreme Court’s most blunt justice, grabbed the spotlight during Wednesday’s debate over college affirmative action programs when he said that perhaps the University of Texas “ought to have fewer” racial minorities. “I don’t think it – it – it stands to reason that it’s a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible”.

A majority of the Supreme Court justices heard arguments Wednesday on the constitutionality of an affirmative-action plan at the University of Texas.

The theory does not necessarily say that white students are better than black students because they are unable to keep up with the school’s academic requirements, as Justice Scalia seems to imply.

The case, Fisher v. University of Texas, No. 14-981, was brought by Abigail Fisher, a white student who says the University of Texas denied her admission in 2008 because of her race. Maybe it ought to have fewer (black students)… One of – one of the briefs pointed out that – that most of the – most of the black scientists in this country don’t come from schools like the University of Texas.

Demonstrators take part in a rally at the US Supreme Court as the affirmative action in university admissions case was being heard at the court in Washington December 9, 2015.

As a black woman who has managed to earn four higher education degrees (one from an Ivy League university) without my head exploding from the exertion, I have trouble seeing Scalia’s view as anything other than poorly reasoned drivel based on bare-faced racial stereotypes. He expressed frustration that the university lawyers were unable to quantify the role race plays in shaping which students are admitted. The state’s Top Ten Percent Law, enacted in 1997 in response to a court decision, requires the school to admit three-quarters of its freshman class each year exclusively on the basis of high school class rank.

Alito said Texas hadn’t shown how students admitted through affirmative action added an element of diversity that wasn’t already provided by the minority students accepted under the Top Ten Percent program. Wednesday’s oral argument centered on how the university uses race as a factor, with some conservative justices challenging the admissions program created to boost minority enrollment.

“What unique perspective does a minority student bring to a physics class?” asked Roberts when presented with the argument that diversity was necessary to providing a better educational experience for all students.

UT attorney Gregory Garre said even though there are critics of the percent plan, it provides opportunities for students that lacked appropriate resources.

It was during these arguments that Justice Antonin Scalia voiced what is perhaps the most boneheaded opinion about black students. “I’m just wondering what the benefits of diversity are in that situation?”

Although more evidence could be introduced if the case were to be returned to a lower court, Kennedy later questioned whether such a move would be needed and suggested the justices themselves could re-examine the information provided by the university.

That’s partly because those flagships compete with private universities that can consider race, said Kahlenberg. He noted that when the court approved using race in small conditions, it said “that we didn’t anticipate these kind of applications to be around in 25 years, and that was 12 years past”.