I bring that up because the Post followed that last sentence with this one
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2025 9:49 am
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION VS. DEMOCRACY
After reading some of the opinion on the recent Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision on the University of Michigan Law School’s affirmative action policy, two stand out. The first is by Jeffrey H. Lehman, Dean of the UM Law School, in the New York Times. Early in his column he writes:
[O]ur policy was not designed to compensate for segregation and discrimination in American society, past or present. It was designed to enroll a group of highly talented students who will, after three years of study, be as well prepared as possible for the modern legal profession.
The last sentence in his column reads:
Colorblindness is an ideal, not an idol, and the Constitution does not shop require us to sacrifice effective education and integration in its name.
First he claims that then UM Law School policy is not about compensating for segregation, then he states it is about integration. Dean Lehman needs to consult a dictionary because integration means to abolish segregation. That Lehman can’t keep his argument consistent is a pretty good indication that he is trying to defend the indefensible.
The other opinion came from the Washington Post editorial page. The Post claims that "the courts should not underestimate diversity's importance to education in a multiethnic democratic society." The Post thinks that because the UM Law School policy is designed to foster diversity, i.e. racial diversity, the courts should uphold the policy. I think, however, that the courts shouldn’t be deluded by the concept of diversity. After all, on most college campuses diversity means diversity of everything except thought and opinion.
American universities function as training grounds for democracy, places where members of the future leadership of this country learn to engage with one another as citizens.
After I picked myself up off the floor—methinks someone at the Post hasn’t visited a college campus in a long time—it occurred to me that such an argument isn’t a justification for keeping affirmative action, but for eliminating it. If universities are supposed to be training grounds for democracy, then they need to encourage unfettered intellectual debate. Yet the orthodoxy of political correctness does much to stifle debate on campuses. It is the affirmative-action induced racial hostility on campuses that, at least in part, fuels political correctness. So if we are serious about universities fostering a democratic mentality—and in the wake of September 11, we should be—then it logically follows that we should do away with race-based admissions policies. Let’s hope that the Supreme Court sees it the same way.
After reading some of the opinion on the recent Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision on the University of Michigan Law School’s affirmative action policy, two stand out. The first is by Jeffrey H. Lehman, Dean of the UM Law School, in the New York Times. Early in his column he writes:
[O]ur policy was not designed to compensate for segregation and discrimination in American society, past or present. It was designed to enroll a group of highly talented students who will, after three years of study, be as well prepared as possible for the modern legal profession.
The last sentence in his column reads:
Colorblindness is an ideal, not an idol, and the Constitution does not shop require us to sacrifice effective education and integration in its name.
First he claims that then UM Law School policy is not about compensating for segregation, then he states it is about integration. Dean Lehman needs to consult a dictionary because integration means to abolish segregation. That Lehman can’t keep his argument consistent is a pretty good indication that he is trying to defend the indefensible.
The other opinion came from the Washington Post editorial page. The Post claims that "the courts should not underestimate diversity's importance to education in a multiethnic democratic society." The Post thinks that because the UM Law School policy is designed to foster diversity, i.e. racial diversity, the courts should uphold the policy. I think, however, that the courts shouldn’t be deluded by the concept of diversity. After all, on most college campuses diversity means diversity of everything except thought and opinion.
American universities function as training grounds for democracy, places where members of the future leadership of this country learn to engage with one another as citizens.
After I picked myself up off the floor—methinks someone at the Post hasn’t visited a college campus in a long time—it occurred to me that such an argument isn’t a justification for keeping affirmative action, but for eliminating it. If universities are supposed to be training grounds for democracy, then they need to encourage unfettered intellectual debate. Yet the orthodoxy of political correctness does much to stifle debate on campuses. It is the affirmative-action induced racial hostility on campuses that, at least in part, fuels political correctness. So if we are serious about universities fostering a democratic mentality—and in the wake of September 11, we should be—then it logically follows that we should do away with race-based admissions policies. Let’s hope that the Supreme Court sees it the same way.