What Obama Should Say About the Texas Affirmative Action Case

Now in deciding Fisher v. Texas, Kennedy seems likely to join the conservative justices John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Antonin Scalia in striking down the use of race at UT?and in establishing a national rule that universities must employ race-neutral alternatives before resorting to racial preferences. (Justice Elena Kagan has recused herself.) In fact, considerable research supports the likely conservative-driven approach?by showing that Justice Kennedy is right, and there are other ways to get to racial diversity. The University of California system, for example was barred from using race following passage of a 1996 voter initiative, but has still managed to increase racial and ethnic diversity by giving a leg up to low-income students and by admitting students who are in the top of their high school class (without paying attention to their standardized test scores). A 2004 Century Foundation study of the nation?s most selective 146 colleges and universities found that class-based affirmative action would produce almost as much racial and ethnic diversity as a directly race-based approach. And a 2010 study at the University of Colorado-Boulder found economic preferences, if properly structured, could actually produce more racial diversity.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=156cdf51f6a75c2a93da49a53057577b

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