Affirmative Action And Diversiphilia Return to the Supreme Court | Trevor Burrus | Cato Institute: Commentary

Affirmative Action And Diversiphilia Return to the Supreme Court | Trevor Burrus | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Diversity, as used by university officials and the Supreme Court in Grutter, is an ideal that treats people as members of a group first and as individuals second. It is explicitly and offensively racial, insofar as it regards any member of a group as a sufficient placeholder for any other.

This would be bad enough if the groups that concern diversiphiles even made sense. But they don’t. The category of “Asian,” for example, may include Indians, Pakistanis, Japanese-Americans, Cambodians, Chinese, and Koreans, just to name a few. These groups come from wildly different religions, languages, and cultural traditions. Some even hate each other. Nevertheless, American universities will group them into a nice little package. Similarly, the category of “Hispanic” is equally un-illuminating, describing anything from a Puerto Rican, to an Italian-Argentinian, to a Mexican of European descent.'

'They have been free to use racial characteristics as a proxy for “unique worldviews” and “authentic perspectives” despite the fact that the concept of race is both too broad and vague to capture these traits adequately. Moreover, by focusing on race as a proxy for experience, they have ignored a more important type of diversity to an educational setting: diversity of opinions and ideologies.'

'Justice John Marshall Harlan penned some of the most prescient words in American legal history: “Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens'