Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent against the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the historic Affirmative Action law in college admission has gone viral on social media.
A portion of it reads: “With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces “colorblindness for all” by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life. And having so detached itself from this country’s actual past and present experiences, the Court has now been lured into interfering with the crucial work that UNC and other institutions of higher learning are doing to solve America’s real-world problems.”
She further added: “No one benefits from ignorance. Although formal race-linked legal barriers are gone, race still matters to the lived experiences of all Americans in innumerable ways, and today’s ruling makes things worse, not better. The best that can be said of the majority’s perspective is that it proceeds (ostrich-like) from the hope that preventing consideration of race will end racism. But if that is its motivation, the majority proceeds in vain. If the colleges of this country are required to ignore a thing that matters, it will not just go away. It will take longer for racism to leave us. And, ultimately, ignoring race just makes it matter more.”
Also Read: What is Affirmative Action in college admissions?
The final decision by SCOTUS was authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, which said that higher education can no longer use race as an explicit factor when it comes to student admissions as it may ‘involve racial stereotyping’. Jackson, who was chosen by President Joe Biden to join the Court in 2022, advocated for programs like those at Harvard and UNC to level the playing field against institutional racism.
“The only way out of this morass — for all of us — is to stare at racial disparity unblinkingly, and then do what evidence and experts tell us is required to level the playing field and march forward together, collectively striving to achieve true equality for all Americans. It is no small irony that the judgment the majority hands down today will forestall the end of race-based disparities in this country, making the colorblind world the majority wistfully touts much more difficult to accomplish.”
