Thomas Sowell‘s latest column at National Review Online pans the U.S. Supreme Court’s latest ruling involving affirmative action in higher education.
Supreme Court decisions in affirmative action cases are the longest running fraud since the 1896 decision upholding racial segregation laws in the Jim Crow South, on grounds that “separate but equal” facilities were consistent with the Constitution. Everybody knew that those facilities were separate but by no means equal. Nevertheless, this charade lasted until 1954.
The Supreme Court’s affirmative-action cases have now lasted since 1974 when, in the case of DeFunis v. Odegaard, the Court voted 5 to 4 that this particular case was moot, which spared the justices from having to vote on its merits.
While the 1896 “separate but equal” decision lasted 58 years, the Supreme Court’s affirmative-action cases have now had 42 years of evasion, sophistry, and fraud, with no end in sight.
One sign of the erosion of principles over the years is that even one of the Court’s most liberal judicial activists, Justice William O. Douglas, could not stomach affirmative action in 1974, and voted to condemn it, rather than declare the issue moot.
But now, in 2016, the supposedly conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy voted to uphold the University of Texas’s racial preferences. Perhaps the atmosphere inside the Washington Beltway wears down opposition to affirmative action, much as water can eventually wear down rock and create the Grand Canyon.
