Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas denounced diversity as a “faddish theory” and called for an absolute end to affirmative action in his concurring opinion to the newly-released Fisher v. Texas decision.
In the 7-1 Fisher decision, the Court vacated and remanded a lower court ruling because Texas had failed to demonstrate that affirmative action was necessary to achieve a diverse student body — a requirement of the Grutter v. Bollinger decision in 2003. It was a win for foes of affirmative action — albeit one that won’t actually end the practice.
One justice was particularly disappointed with the tepid decision.
“I would overrule Grutter v. Bollinger and hold that a State’s use of race in higher education admissions decisions is categorically prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause,” began Thomas in a scathing concurring opinion.
He didn’t stop there.
“As should be obvious, there is nothing ‘pressing’ or ‘necessary’ about obtaining whatever educational benefits may flow from racial diversity,” he wrote.
He went on to call diversity a “faddish theory,” and also argued that the supporters of affirmative action made arguments similar to those put forth by segregationists who sought to preserve separate facilities for blacks and whites in the earlier part of the 20th century.
“The University asserts, for instance, that the diversity obtained through its discriminatory admissions program prepares its students to become leaders in a diverse society,” he wrote. “The segregationists likewise defended segregation on the ground that it provided more leadership opportunities for blacks. … There is no principled distinction between the University’s assertion that diversity yields educational benefits and the segregationists’ assertion that segregation yielded those same benefits.”
Race-based programs are abhorrent to the text of the Constitution, wrote Thomas.
“The Fourteenth Amendment views racial bigotry as an evil to be stamped out, not as an excuse for perpetual racial tinkering by the State,” he wrote.
What about the argument that affirmative action is necessary to remedy historical injustice, helping disadvantaged minorities succeed?
“The worst forms of racial discrimination in this Nation have always been accompanied by straight-faced representations that discrimination helped minorities,” Thomas wrote. “Slaveholders argued that slavery was a ‘positive good’ that civilized blacks and elevated them in every dimension of life. … A century later, segregationists similarly asserted that segregation was not only benign, but good for black students.”
Besides, race-based admissions hurt qualified white and Asian students while thrusting black and Hispanic students into colleges for which they may not be prepared, wrote Thomas.
“As a result of the mismatching, many blacks and Hispanics who likely would have excelled at less elite schools are placed in a position where underperformance is all but inevitable because they are less academically prepared than the white and Asian students with whom they must compete,” he wrote.
Thomas, the Court’s only black justice, will get to take another shot at affirmative action this fall when the Court takes up Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action — a case where the broader legality of race-based admissions is at stake.
Editor’s note: The Daily Caller employs Clarence Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, as a part-time correspondent.
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