At the end of June, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the admissions systems used by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was unconstitutional. The Court found that those colleges’ use of race as a factor in admission decisions violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
“Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful endpoints. We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so today,” said the decision, by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
Unlike so many of my progressive friends, I struggle to care. If we really want to create a fairer world, the place to do that isn’t at Harvard. To erase race and income as barriers to success, then we have put all our efforts in Kindergartens in Camden, Detroit, Appalachia, and Buffalo. We have to reach students at younger ages and in bigger numbers. A decision that may impact a handful of students at a very small elite college does little to help the third grader in Newark who can’t read.
Read more at Apt. 11D, the Newsletter
Apt. 11d 
I think the litigation over this decision has only begun—more lawsuits, more aggrieved students and parents, more university money spent on fighting back. If it’s just Harvard, I don’t mind so much. But if state flagships like UNC (where I went to grad school), it’s taxpayer funds not spent on education. Here’s a story from today’s inside Higher Ed on the topic: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/admissions/traditional-age/2023/07/17/what-affirmative-action-decision-means-beyond-admissions
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“Unlike so many of my progressive friends, I struggle to care. If we really want to create a fairer world, the place to do that isn’t at Harvard.”
Yes! We all have a strong tendency to root for our teams, and if we don’t feel the Supremes are our team, to root against them. I am unconvinced that policies which benefit Deval Patrick’s, and Shaq’s, children are a way to redress historical wrongs…
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