The Supreme Court is pondering the fate of Harvard’s race-based admissions system (see It was okay to discriminate against white people, but maybe it is not okay to discriminate against Asians and What is Harvard’s argument for race-based admissions in the #StopAsianHate age?). From the Bad Guys (TM):
Here’s part of an email from the Harvard president, sent on Halloween:
When Harvard assembles a class of undergraduates, it matters that they come from different social, economic, geographical, racial, and ethnic backgrounds. It matters that they come to our campus with varied academic interests and skill sets. Research and lived experience teach us that each student’s learning experience is enriched by encountering classmates who grew up in different circumstances.
Harvard is not alone in believing that we are more than our test scores and that our unique perspectives bring a wealth of educational benefits to a high-quality educational enterprise.
See if we can guess an ethnic group that is less than its members’ test scores…
The legal battle we have waged, which reaches its apex today, is as important to other colleges and universities, and to society, as it is to us. Educators and scholars, civil rights organizers, historians, and education advocates stand with us. Leaders in business and technology stand with us. Former military officers and the heads of the nation’s service academies stand with us. Their voices—ringing out in amicus briefs—are part of a chorus that has risen across our campus and throughout our country in defense of forty years of legal precedent, as well as the history of the 14th Amendment.
Today, individuals of great skill will argue in favor of our cause inside the highest court in the land.
Mediocre individuals were apparently scheduled to argue against Harvard’s Great Cause.
We now await the final decision of the court with earnest anticipation. Whatever it is, we will honor the law while also remaining true to our values.
Translation of “remaining true to our values”: “We will find a workaround so that we can continue discriminating against these Asian nerds without running afoul of the law.”
This academic bureaucrat is proud of the work that he has done for decades in sorting student and faculty applicants by skin color. Suppose, however, that the Supreme Court rules that the sort-by-skin-color policy is unconstitutional. By inference, then, Harvard and its bureaucrats have been depriving applicants of their constitutional rights to be judged by factors other than skin color. The big question for today: Will the president of Harvard and lesser bureaucrats offer an apology?
Speaking of unconstitutionality and appeals, what happened to the Biden administration’s appeal of Judge Kathryn Mizelle’s finding that the CDC’s mask order was unconstitutional? Joe Biden never apologized for violating Americans’ constitutional rights, I don’t think. The appeal was filed in April (heritage.org). In the meantime, it looks as though Joe Biden actually could legally order Americans to #MaskUpSaveLives. The courts seem to agree that this can be done via the TSA if not the CDC. “Supreme Court leaves TSA mask requirement ruling in place” (The Hill, Halloween):
The Supreme Court on Monday let stand a ruling that allows the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to require mask-wearing on planes, trains and other forms of transport.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit found no merit in Corbett’s claim and affirmed the TSA did have the agency to maintain security and safety within the transportation system, including imposing the masking requirement.
Biden has the power to keep us safe and secure! But why didn’t he reimpose the airport-and-airline mask order on November 1 after the Supreme Court failed to intervene? Even if most airline passengers are vaccinated we don’t want people gathering unmasked and breeding a vaccine-resistant superbug that will be deadly to the unvaccinated, as happened with Marek’s disease. Even if Democrats can control the entire United States and force everyone to get accept COVID-19 vaccinated there will still be billions of unvaccinated and/or unboosted folks in poor countries who would be vulnerable to the superbug that we created via our policy of widespread vaccination followed by mass gatherings.
Is Joe Biden following the Science, but waiting until after the election to bring the masks back?
Oh come on Phil, institutions like Harvard only apologize for things that don’t matter to anyone still alive — like apologizing for discriminating against Jews in admissions 90 years ago or for naming a building after someone who owned a slave 200 years ago.
The more interesting question is what are Harvard and all those other institutions going to do with their grievance study department when the clientele is no longer there. I mean little Kimmie Wong who graduated Stuyvesant is going to want to study engineering or computer science at Harvard so what is gong to happen to those fine grievance study scholars? Will Harvard make it mandatory to have at least 12 course hours of grievance studies in order to graduate?
But why didn’t he reimpose the airport-and-airline mask order on November 1 after the Supreme Court failed to intervene? Because masks don’t work!
Harvard can simply use an “admissions acknowledgement”, where the admissions stolen from Asians will be commemorated. That way, they are in the clear and can simply continue the discriminatory policies without doing anything.
I still don’t care about Black Lives Matter!
Considering an overwhelming majority of Supreme Court justices are from Harvard and Yale, it will be interesting to see if their loyalty to their alma maters will trump their ideological stance.
It’s always interesting to see how elite universities was lyrical to great lengths about their racial diversity, but socio-economic diversity gets deafening silence.
The super talented students will go elsewhere and some other institutions will have amazing alumni a few years later. Harvard loses
> Is Joe Biden following the Science, but waiting until after the election to bring the masks back?
Probably. Other distractions like LGBTQ++ or BLM++ no longer work that well. China does not really comply with the hoped-for Taiwan escalation and issues cautiously Russia-critical statements.
So, mask mandates seem like the best option to distract from the economic malaise and train the subjects for compliance.