As I sit at the bedside of affirmative action for Black people, I am not reflecting on its short life. I am not fuming about what could be a premature death.
I am reflecting on the recent strategy to keep it alive. I am fuming about the failure of liberals to move outside the new box of liberalism to sustain its life.
After the Supreme Court listened to oral arguments this week in Fisher v. University of Texas, it appears quite a few liberals have begun to pray for a miracle. Like a man falling out of an airplane, only a miracle, they believe, will keep affirmative action for Black people alive.
They are right—they do need a miracle. With their strategy, the liberal defenders of affirmative action for Black people need a miracle if they hope to win. The losing strategy: moral suasion or, what I term in my work, “White suasion.”
Liberal supporters of affirmative action have argued that it benefits White students, White colleges, White America to have diverse student bodies. They will try to persuade White people that it is in their interest to keep a minor admissions factor that benefits Black people. This is the diversity rationale.
In Grutter v. Bollinger, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the affirmative action for Black people used by the University of Michigan Law School in 2003. Surprisingly siding with the majority, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote in the majority ruling that the Constitution “does not prohibit the law school’s narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body.”
Who benefits educationally from a diverse student body? The implication was clear—White students. Liberal defenders grabbed this shield and have defended affirmative action for Black people from the blows of opponents ever since.
