Affirmative action today…(2)

Word comes today via Michelle Hackman’s Wall Street Journal story that the Trump administration is planning to rescind “a set of Obama-era policies that encourage the use of race in college admissions to promote diverse educational settings[.]” Hackman tacfully couches her report in the euphemisms that enshroud the practice of racial discrimination in the name of “affirmative action.”

Hackman does not link to either of the two Obama administration guidance documents that is to be rescinded. Here is the 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter with attached guidance materials. As Peter Wood said at the time, the guidance documents “seem to sanction common university practices which circumvent the law.” Wood added: “The Departments of Education and Justice justify the new ‘guidance’ as an explanation of how colleges and universities can expand the use of race without running afoul of federal law. But they are very loose in their reading of Supreme Court rulings over the last decade. For example, they give college officials broad new powers to rely on their own ‘judgment’ for when and how to take race into account. This is contrary to the spirit of existing law.”

There may be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth — it’s hard to hear above the din — but I think the rescission of the Obama guidance documents is an unqualifiedly good thing.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses