It took 69 years, but today the U.S. Supreme Court took its revenge on Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case that cracked the door a smidge to desegregating schools.
Revenge, not reversal, because today’s decision all but ending affirmative action in college admissions doesn’t erase Brown. It pretends that Brown no longer needs to exist. It returns the country to the days when race couldn’t be denied, necessarily–whites have never denied their race–but that the other person’s racial identity could be. It makes color-blindness national policy, as long as whites wear the blinders.
Since whites still control the overwhelming majority of levers, but with no affirmative balancing factors to worry about anymore, it’s simply math how this will go. The vengeful feel of the decision is in Justice Roberts’s cynical use of stats when he cited the plaintiffs saying that “over 80% of all black applicants in the top academic decile were admitted to UNC, while under 70% of white and Asian applicants in that decile were admitted,” never citing, of course that at UNC, a state school in a state where 22 percent of the population is Black, 59 percent of the student body is white, and just 8 percent Black. That omission “blinks reality,” to use the words he used against a dissenter in the same footnote.
The vengeful shade of the decision is in the deceptively Pledgy with-liberty-and-justice-for-all tone that Justice Thomas adopted in his concurrence, either as he sneered with Heritage Foundation-shaped quote marks at the word equity, or as he invoked the ideals of Reconstruction: “the solution announced in the second founding is incorporated in our Constitution: that we are all equal, and should be treated equally before the law without regard to our race.”
But the language is tuned to the same motives behind the John Birch Society’s “Impeach Earl Warren” billboards that invaded the South in reaction to Brown, much to the joy of segregationists everywhere: to stop diversity’s progress by pretending that constitutional language is enough not to impede it.
So like Justice Scalia’s magically realist invention of an individual right to bear arms in the 2008 Heller decision, today’s decision is not a legal one, exactly. It builds on fictions such as Sandra Day O’Connort’s from the 2003 case that the justices almost overturned today, when she claimed that “25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest” of diversity.
At the time, O’Connor sounded like a Sybil foretelling the coming deliverance. In retrospect, and with her black robe made of the same cloth that hid the Wizard of Oz, she sounds more like the clever clairvoyance of Nostradamus. (At least George Orwell, no stranger to prophesies, had the good sense to preface his predictions with a disclaimer: “All prophesies are wrong, therefore this one will be wrong.”)
Then came Justice Roberts’s hyper-fictions, first with his bumper-sticker tautology in 2007 that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” The statement was as nonsensical as those commercials for hemorrhoidal cream showing freckled middle aged women happily swimming in a pool or hiking the Grand Canyon, presumably itchless. There’s no relationship between Preparation H and the images shown, just as there’s no earthly connection between the first and second clause of Roberts’s statement. But it sent conservatives swooning because it had that oracular ring of fortune cookies that gag further inquiry.
Roberts did it again today when he wrote that a student “must be treated based on his or her experience as an individual–not on the basis of race.” (This from a court that–using the same Amendment on which it bases today’s decision–defines corporations as persons, a court that considers ExxonMobil or Microsoft as singly individual as your neighbor or mine.)
Roberts, in this blinkered view of individuality, is saying that race in one’s experience is incidental, not controlling. He is speaking from experience: his experience. He is speaking as only a white, entitled, privileged American can speak, a white American to whom race is incidental, in a country where nothing is incidental when you’re not white. Not often, anyway. Not so often that Howard Zinn’s observation would be outdated, as Roberts wishes it to be: “There is not a country in world history,” Zinn wrote, “in which racism has been more important, for so long a time, as in the United States.”
There is some idealism in today’s decision. We want to think that judging anyone by their character rather than the color of their skin–or their ethnic origin, their gender, their religious creed, their zip code, their name, their wealth–is who and how we are. We instinctively want to incline to equality in those regards, at least when we deliver speeches before the Rotary or the chamber of commerce.
There’s a discomfort in knowing that anyone would get an advantage not because of innate merit, but because of the luck of birth’s draw. There’s plenty of room for disdaining the condescension and paternalism of what Justice Thomas 20 years ago, before he got his revenge today, referred to as the “fashionable catchphrase” of diversity, which can demean the very people it is intended help as much as it can uplift.
But that’s not saying much more than the obvious. We are an imperfect union, founded on an imperfect document still very far from being achieved, even in its numerous imperfections. Affirmative action was one of those correctives as surely as the second founding, and the third, were others.
That’s what Gerald Ford, 23 years out of the presidency, thought in 1999 when he decried the lawsuit seeking to end the use of race as a factor at the University of Michigan, his own alma mater. “At its core, affirmative action should try to offset past injustices by fashioning a campus population more truly reflective of modern America and our hopes for the future,” he’d written simply. “To eliminate a constitutional affirmative action policy would mock the inclusive vision Carl Sandburg had in mind when he wrote: ‘The Republic is a dream. Nothing happens unless first a dream.’ Lest we forget: America remains a nation with have-nots as well as haves. Its government is obligated to provide for hope no less than for the common defense.”
Affirmative action survived then. That’s the precedent the justices un-achieved today.
Pierre Tristam is FlaglerLive’s editor. A version of this piece is airing on WNZF.
JEK says
The justices are vengeful individuals and Clarence Thomas is reprehensible . He should be hanging his head in shame, that damned hypocrite. Unfortunately I know that he isn’t. He’s probably enjoying a nice cocktail this evening.
The dude says
“He’s probably enjoying a nice cocktail this evening.”
On somebody else’s dime no doubt. That’s how they roll…
Oldstone17 says
Wow. Your unhinged rants on each judge’s decision sounds like you need a safe space to go to. As always when facts are absent personal attacks work best🤣You said one thing correct in the article and what was the earmark of social justice when they were really trying to level the playing field. “Judge someone not on the color of their skin but the content of their character”. Achievement should be color blind and about personal effort. There is not one law in this country that discriminates against one person doing something another can based on race. Personal achievement is a choice and a lifestyle decision someone consciously makes. When you base everything on color and victimization instead of calling out societal and cultural failings that lead to real change you get Chicago, Baltimore, LA, DC, etc.. the most lost cities in the country because there is no accountability. Accountability is the only thing that will change the future not pandering to fake quotas.
Bill C says
This decision rests on the concept that systemic racism no longer exists in this country, the playing field has been leveled. Therefore, Affirmative Action is no longer necessary. Take a look at the Florida State Flag. It’s a barely disguised version of the “stars and bars” Confederate Battle Flag. Racist beliefs are alive and well in the United States, just disguised.
Nephew Of Uncle Sam says
The Florida State flag is not “disguised version of the “stars and bars” Confederate Battle Flag.” It goes all the way to the Spanish Rule here when the flag was white with the Cross of Burgundy on it. The State flag of Florida has gone through many changes since then with the current flag design approved in 1900 and later updated.
Miguel Sanchez says
Actually it’s St Andrew’s cross and was added to the flag in 1900. However, keep providing us with your amusing conspiracy theories.
Bill C says
Maybe you and Nephew should get your stories straight, as St Andrews is from Scotland and the Cross of Burgundy originated in France. Here’s what The University of Virginia says about the Confederate Battle Flag:
https://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug97/flags/confederate_stars_and_bars.html
jake says
“The current design of Florida’s state flag was adopted in 1900. In that year, Florida voters ratified a constitutional amendment based on an 1899 joint resolution of the state legislature to add diagonal red bars, in the form of a St. Andrew’s cross, to the flag.”
https://dos.myflorida.com/florida-facts/florida-state-symbols/state-flag/#:~:text=The%20current%20design%20of%20Florida's,Andrew's%20cross%2C%20to%20the%20flag.
Pierre Tristam says
The Florida Department of State’s version of history is about as reliable as its department of health’s surgeon general’s idea of medicine. Florida in 1900 was a Jim Crow orgy. The St Andrew ploy was a nice veil for the visual dog whistle obvious to all. It fooled no one—not then, not since. No more than calling racist confederate symbols “heritage.” Doesn’t take a Navajo code-breaker to see through the bullshit.
don miller says
and if it is, you’re helping to keep it alive. no special classes with unequal protection finally gone.
don miller says
actually it rests on the content of the the constitution.
Bill NMN C says
Your unhinged rants sounds like you need a comment section to air your simplistic (and ignorant) interpretation of a complex issue. Shamefully those of your stripe run to MLK quotes in any context that fits your argument. -Achievement should be color blind; judge by the content of character; personal effort will reap its rewards and the old “you too can grow up to be President” easily spill from your lips even though you know that those things are not necessarily true for a huge segment of our population. They are motivational tools to better move our nation towards progress and codifying laws might help reach those lofty goals. But, in reality every progress towards those goals is hindered by the likes of Roberts, Thomas and those who favor these as dreams, and wishes but not as reality. There will never be equality as long as the dominant race continues to cling to (but not live up to) the tenets outlined in the Constitution and accountability doesn’t only apply to the individuals on the short in of the stick but also to those in dominance who enjoy the fruits of their roots.
Proud American says
Great day to be an American. Let merit decide. When you select based on race that is racism. I’m proud to be white. Proud to be a heterosexual male. Proud of my masculinity. Now, I can be proud that if my son has better grades than someone of color he won’t get passed over for being white.
Dave Roskins says
I love it!!!! Rock on my friend!!
Geezer says
Yean meant to say that you’re an Ugly American.
So you’re proud to be white… When you were conceived,
did you pick “white?” You can’t help being white, thereby
can’t be proud of your skin’s melanin content.
Proud to be heterosexual? Those who boast about their so-called
masculinity usually avoid male locker rooms for the fear of
an unwelcome “woody” making the scene.
You see—some things needn’t or shouldn’t be said, for they expose
your corrupt mind’s thought process. Did your parents imbue this
idea of white pride in you? Gee, I hope that your offspring isn’t
infected with your brand of diseased thinking. I hope that your
sickness skipped this generation and breaks the cycle of DUMB.
It’s a terrible inheritance that no young person deserves.
Accomplish something that betters life for all, then you can be “proud.”
Just being white and homophobic aren’t accomplishments—in your
pathetic case, they’re impediments.
don miller says
black power and pride. Pride month, black awareness month, etc…. all promote pride so why can’t whites and heteros promote pride ?
Pierre Tristam says
You don’t need promoting what you’ve been jack-booting down our throats for millennia. But the mere fact that you’d see the need for white and hetero promotion suggests you might want to re-familiarize yourself with words like supremacy and hubris. These days, assuming you’ve kept up with the supremacists on our highest court, those words are our stars and bars.
Bill NMN C says
You are all of the above by chance not by choice. If you win the lottery you should be “happy” that you did. But, you shouldn’t besmirch the person sitting next to you who didn’t. NOWHERE IN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION WOULD YOU SON BE DENIED ENTRANCE IF HE HAD BETTER GRADES THAN MY SON. The application was for STUDENTS WHO MET THE SAME ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES. However, if you were an alumni and your son and mine got the same grades, your son would be given legacy admission status, But, I guess that’s alright with you. One more thing you should be proud tof: that you don’t know the law that you commented on.
Oldstone17 says
Black Americans graduate from law school at the bottom 25 percent of their classes, largely speaking. And we don’t want that.
We want Black students to succeed. We want every student to succeed. Low-income students to succeed.
But you have to put them in scenarios in places where they’re likely to succeed. And lowering your standard to admit somebody of a socioeconomic status or race would not help them do that. In fact it would harm their graduation rate and excellence.
Bill NMN C says
Huh? That was some nifty number manipulation you just did. There are black law students who do not graduate at the bottom 25% so your broad-brush premise is a little disingenuous. Your comment presupposes that standards were lowered and that’s not true. Harvard’s diversity program searched the country, especially in lower income school districts and recruited potential students who would not otherwise apply to Harvard. If race nor socio-economics are not to be considered how then do you diversify? Or are we saying the have’s shall continue to keep the have-nots in their place?
don miller says
that’s not right. there are only so many admission to a college per year. it is not infinite.
Atwp says
Proud American, African Americans are always passed over. Your point is?
Shelly says
Another media meltdown
Dave Roskins says
Couldn’t have said it better myself!
Atwp says
As African Americans my people survived during the Jim Crowe years their off springs will survive today. Very few whites didn’t care whether African Americans went to big schools or not, they were concerned about their education. I guess the Republicans and most of white Americans are happy today. As African Americans we are used to being denied by this demonic society.
jake says
Just a thought, would you prefer an African American doctor to treat your sickness or do your surgery, or the doctor with the most knowledge, regardless of skin color?
Bill NMN C says
Just a thought: If my grandchild gets to go to school next to your grandchild and get the same education and the same advantages your’s is afforded then why isn’t my grandchild in med school? If the answer is “drive, desire, etc.” Then yes I want your grandkid to be the doctor. But, if the answer is because your grandkid went to Duke Medical or some prestigious Med school (that is not compelled to diversify) and mine couldn’t would you then realize that without mandates America would not voluntarily make an effort even the playing field?
don miller says
they won’t have a choice to deny any longer, if your premise ever existed. everyone has equal chance based on accomplishments. guess you are saying the minorities who were at prestigious schools be have never been there based on merit alone. that is nothing to be proud of. well, that is a fine kettle of fish.
Atwp says
Jake, African American.
jake says
Atwp, I want the best, most qualified person, regardless of color, religion, or sexual preference.
Oldstone says
Demonic society? Or demonic culture where education, family, law and order aren’t prioritized values. It is sad that everyone feels African Americans can’t achieve things without a hand out or a pull up. No wonder African Americans are upset, if my culture was always framed to be less than every other culture and unable to survive on its own without elite white person handouts it would have a stigmatizing effect on me as well. But I guess the narrative is more important than progress. How about we give respect and allow them to figure out how to move their generations forward without some white person telling them they need their help or a hand out to be as good or equal to us. Everything should be based on merit and effort not not handouts and freebies or feelings that one race can’t perform as well as the other. Great decision for ALL Americans!
don miller says
those that choose the live in the past will stay there and simmer in bitterness, while sacrificing their present and future opportunities for nothing. we all could still be hating the British for forcing us into a war–or germans, or japanese. Press on.
DaleL says
Pierre, I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one. The court’s decision was more narrow than liberal headlines would have us believe. The court did not rule out admission policies based on social or economic backgrounds. Such policies could help disadvantaged individuals, especially inner-city African Americans. Believe it or not, there are also European Americans who come from economically impoverished backgrounds who deserve a chance to go to college.
Isn’t it also time to quit using color to identify/group people? More and more people in this country do not identify as “yellow”, “red”, “brown”, “black”, or “white”. My ancestry is European, but my skin is not white. White is associated with undesirable movements and organizations. (KKK, White Nationalists, etc.) As a result, I do NOT identify as White! I identify as Caucasian or European American, but my weathered old brown skin is definitely not white.
People are individuals. Colleges should consider each applicant individually. There is nothing in this court decision to prevent a college from considering whether an applicant who comes from a broken home, a poor family, or under-educated parents shouldn’t be considered over an applicant from a wealthy background.
Pogo says
@P.T. c/o FlaglerLive
The Republican Party’s Racist Nazi shithead choir is well attended as usual.
Of course, no mention by them, whether they’re glad that the armed forces’ academies are exempt, or the affirmative action for sale in the form of legacy admissions isn’t addressed.
Or that Jeb Bush, a creep ahead of his time, started this in floriduh, almost 25 years ago.
And so it goes.
Jackson1955 says
I hope you folks who didn’t think Hillary Clinton could do the job are happy with the Supreme Court tRUMP left us with.
Dennis C Rathsam says
America has finally got it right. Black, White, Green, or Purple, if your smart theres no denying it. This reversal is long over due. Thank god the court got it right. Its great to be an American.
Monica Campana says
43% of Harvard students are there based on legacy not merit. If we can’t use race can we use income and eliminate the lucky and not necessarily qualified ones with generational wealth? Seems to me it fits Roberts statement the student “must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race,” Using the experience of poverty could increase diversity and eliminate unqualified rich kids.
don miller says
legacy admits next on the chopping block. problem is just because your daddy went there and now you are, doesn’t mean your dumb and undeserved. frequently those kids come from a good parenting and education prizing family. or maybe it does like hunter biden legacy lawyer.
FlaglerLive says
Some commenters’ zip code matches Downton Abbey’s.
Ban the GOP says
Nazis backing white supremecy big surprise. We need to get people to go after these fascist the same way they are targeting others.
jake says
Really Pierre, this kind of shit shouldn’t even be posted.
Ed says
The reality is that universities would never had to use any racial consideration if every student was properly educated in the inner city schools. Instead of correcting the root cause, they attempted to level the playing field.
If all this outrage from this decision was focused on educating inner city students, just maybe it can be corrected.
The other elephant in the room is what’s called “legacy admission”. If my father was an ivy leaguer and had the right contacts, then I am a shoe in for admission. Is that ok?
The reality is life is not fair. Fair is a play ground term, no one is owed anything. You must earn everything. Entitlement can not be expected.
Once again, it begins at home with early childhood development. Participation trophies helps no one. Fatherless family units are usually not discussed.
How about some intellectual honesty and you tackle the problems instead of pointing fingers and being offended and outraged by everything.
Sherry says
@ed. . . Education in the lower grades is certainly not equal. Just look at all the “tax payer” $$$$ that is being taken from “public” schools and given to “religious and private” schools that receive tax breaks and have biased admission practices.
don miller says
finally, a court that knows we are all equal.
Sherry says
@dm. . . in what universe are we all equal? “You” are nothing short of delusional! FOX brainwashing= bleach, wash, rinse. . . repeat! repeat! repeat! repeat! repeat!
don miller says
good luck getting hired or educated . no one needs the uncoachable with chips on their shoulders. nothing but excuses living in the past.
Sherry says
@don. . . if you are referring to me, I have already been very highly educated and extremely successful in my profession. Now, living a very happy, joy filled, life after having escaped ignorant, fear and hate filled people in Flagler county.
I certainly don’t have a chip on my shoulder. . . I merely don’t suffer fools gladly. LOL! LOL! LOL!