It’s not that we like discriminating

With the two University of Michigan cases pending before the Supreme Court, the Washington Post continues to do what it can to preserve the regime of racial discrimination: “Wider fallout seen from race-neutral admissions.”
Here is the Post’s page-one address to Sandra O’Connor: “‘The best estimate that we have is that without race-conscious admissions, the number of African Americans in an entering class of 350 would fall below 10,’ said Jeffrey S. Lehman, dean of Michigan’s law school. In the past decade, Michigan has enrolled 21 to 37 black first-year law students per class. ‘If there were a way to enroll more underrepresented minorities without considering race, we’d do it,’ he said. ‘It is not that we like being race-conscious.’
“Michigan’s law school, which is considered highly selective, admits students who average 165 on the Law School Admissions Test and a grade-point average of 3.5. Last fall, 4,461 law school applicants nationwide achieved or exceeded those grades, according to a brief the Law School Admission Council filed at the Supreme Court. Of those students, the council said, 29 were black and 114 were Hispanic.”
The story makes a point of demonstrating the wisdom of discrimination in favor of “Hispanics.” I have yet to see a reasoned argument in favor of such discrimination. Problems with such discrimination include the category of “Hispanic” itself. Consider in this context Richard Rodriguez’s April 14 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute: “The invention of Hispanics and the reinvention of America.”