Port: We don’t need affirmative action to achieve diversity
MINOT — The U.S. Supreme Court has declared most affirmative action policies to be unconstitutional.
Some carry on as if the court has made it illegal to even aspire to racial equality. Which, of course, isn’t true, but this court, with its conservative cant, has become a political flashpoint.
In decades past, when the court was delivering opinions in line with progressive pieties, there was no question of its legitimacy, but now that a conservative legal doctrine is being applied, suddenly, the court is some dodgy morass of crooked jurisprudence.
So it goes. Though I should point out that the court’s ruling was in line with where a majority of Americans are on this issue, a number that includes a majority of Hispanics, and a plurality of Black citizens.
Another data point: In 2020, California voted to keep in place a ban on affirmative action policies in the same election where President Joe Biden won the state by more than 20 points. Worth thinking about as you consider some of the more overwrought reactions to the court’s opinion.
