{"id":185,"date":"2010-01-14T16:49:10","date_gmt":"2010-01-14T21:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jparnell.com\/blog\/?p=185"},"modified":"2010-01-14T16:49:10","modified_gmt":"2010-01-14T21:49:10","slug":"sandra-day-oconnor-and-race-based-college-admissions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/?p=185","title":{"rendered":"Sandra Day O’Connor and race-based college admissions"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a 2003 ruling, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O\u2019Connor suggested that using race as a factor in college admissions decisions might make sense only for a limited period of time. Now retired, O\u2019Connor just published an essay with Cornell Law School Dean Stewart J. Schwab on the prospects for revisiting the need for race-conscious admissions policies at U.S. colleges (see The Next 25 Years: Affirmative Action in Higher Education in the United States and South Africa<\/em>). <\/em>In the essay, O\u2019Connor and Schwab made a chilling statement about the role of the high court:<\/p>\n

“When the time comes to reassess the constitutionality of considering race in higher-education admissions, we will need social scientists to clearly demonstrate the educational benefits of diverse student bodies, and to better understand the links between role models in one generation and aspirations and achievements of succeeding generations.”<\/p>\n

Justice O\u2019Connor, please tell me what social science research has to do with the constitutionality of anything? Using race as a factor in college admissions decisions is either constitutional or it\u2019s not. Does this mean that gun control is constitutional if a group of social scientists suggest that such a policy might reduce crime? Should freedom of the press be curtailed if social scientists suggest that doing so might result in a more orderly society? A law or practice is constitutional if it is consistent with the original intent of the document itself. Neither public opinion nor current research should be a judicial consideration.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, O\u2019Connor\u2019s thinking is commonplace among activist judges. To them, assessing the constitutionality of a law or practice doesn\u2019t really involve the Constitution at all. It\u2019s all about what seems to make sense at the moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a 2003 ruling, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O\u2019Connor suggested that using race as a factor in college admissions decisions might make sense only for a limited period of time. Now retired, O\u2019Connor just published an essay with Cornell Law School Dean Stewart J. Schwab on the prospects for revisiting the need for race-conscious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}