Are universities preparing to circumvent Supreme Court decision banning affirmative action?

The Supreme Court weigh Whether to prohibit the use of race as a criterion for admission. Many universities would then seek ways to circumvent the decision to continue the racial quotas currently in place.

All universities deny the existence of quotas, but many actually have numerical “goals” or “goals” that correspond to quotas. These quotas are both floors and ceilings, with applicants of color having caps and Asian Americans having caps.

Some universities have already started the avoidance process by eliminating objective criteria such as: test score. Without test scores, admissions officers can substitute subjective factors as a proxy for race. A current Supreme Court case argues that this is exactly what is being done to some people. Outstanding Asian American Applicantshas been rejected on the basis of vague criteria widely considered to be racially biased.

“Diversity, Inclusion and Equity” are now substituted. These are narrowly defined to emphasize race rather than intellectual, economic, religious, and other diversifying factors that are highly relevant to the academic mission of the university.

Current policy at many universities favors wealthy black applicants from prestigious families who attended prestigious prep schools over first-generation Asian Americans who had to continue working while attending public schools. It is This is precisely because there are numerical assignments that are not differentiated based on individual factors.

Also, it’s easier for admissions officers to think of something as a simple race by focusing on checkboxes rather than evaluating each individual based on various relevant factors. Test scores and grades are also easier to consider, but the emphasis on such criteria makes it more difficult to meet racial quotas and goals.

Therefore, eliminate or minimize test scores and adopt race-reflecting standards without explicitly prejudicing Supreme Court rulings and without reducing the number of minority applicants allowed. tactic is adopted.

Many universities have had considerable experience with such workarounds going back many years to Jewish and Catholic applicants for over a century. elite school Harvard, Yale, Wellesley, Stanford, Princeton, and others denied adopting religious quotas, but everyone knew the exact numbers that turned out each year.

They knew how to limit the number of undesirable people by manipulating criteria such as ‘character’, ‘manners’ and ‘compatibility’ that negative target groups were deemed lacking. They didn’t cheat anyone, but they didn’t have to because at the time the law didn’t protect applicants who were discriminated against.

It will soon be, and schools will need to be less visible and less transparent.as my former colleague Lawrence Tribe put it: “Wise universities like Harvard will find ways to deal with this decision without radically changing their composition. But they will need to be even smarter than ever.”

I leave it to the reader to interpret the tribe’s remarks. But it seems to me that he is advocating a process that leaves race quotas and goals essentially intact, while using race as a criterion for achieving those quotas. We are not very transparent about hiring.

What message does it send to future leaders currently studying in colleges that eminent professors and administrators seek to circumvent Supreme Court rulings to achieve even laudable ends? Will it be

This is unlike how Southern colleges tried to circumvent desegregation decisions in the 1950s and ’60s. They created an excuse to discriminate against African-American applicants. Current university administrators seek pretexts to discriminate in favor of such applicants at the expense of other applicants.

However, while the ends are very different, the means are very similar.

This is yet another example of an end that is supposed to be a desirable justification but is not. We see it today in many situations, such as the selective weaponization of the criminal justice system to target political opponents. It is done subtly without fingerprints.

But it erodes constitutional protections. Concerned not only with ends but also with constitutional means, we will monitor and hold circumventors to account, regardless of their good intentions.like the brandy of justice observed: “The greatest danger to liberty lurks in the insidious encroachment by well-intentioned but ignorant and zealous people.”

Alan DershowitzHe is Professor Emeritus of Harvard Law School and author of numerous books, including his most recent. “The Price of Principle” and “Catch Trump.” He is also the host of Rumble’s Durshaw. follow him on twitter @Alandersh.