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Krauthammer hails ‘towering’ affirmative action decision: ‘Exactly the way you want to do it in a democracy’

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Brendan Bordelon Contributor
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Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer praised the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a Michigan law banning affirmative action in public universities, calling it “exactly the way you want to to do it in a democracy.”

Krauthammer appeared on a Fox News panel along with the Weekly Standard’s Steve Hayes and liberal commentator Juan Williams to discuss the decision.

“The left is trying to institutionalize affirmative action,” Krauthammer asserted, “to make it impossible for any legislature or any referendum ever to abolish it, ever in the history of the country. Essentially to say that it’s an intrinsic part of the Constitution, racial preferences are here forever.”

“An outrageous proposition that was rejected by the court,” he continued. “And it said, ‘We’re not going to rule that it’s intrinsically in the constitution, just as 11 years ago we didn’t want to rule that it’s not allowed.”

“‘We leave the decision of affirmative action up to the people,'” he explained, “which is exactly the way you want to do it in a diverse democracy with a troubled history. Let each region, let each state decide on its own, exactly as what was happening with abortion until the Court stepped in and prevented the evolution.”

“What happened today on affirmative action is a towering decision that will allow now a stable settlement,” Krauthammer asserted, “as the country — very complex and diverse — works it out state by state. Exactly as you want to do it in a democracy.”

Hayes agreed, taking particular umbrage at Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s impassioned dissent, which primarily argued that racism was still alive and well in America.

“This was a decision written by somebody who was writing about emotion,” he noted. “It was President Obama’s ’empathy standard’ — that’s what he was looking for when he nominated her, that’s what I think he got.”

“But in terms of what she argued, it was intellectual hogwash,” he added.

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