Two Tales of the Supreme Court Term
Hadley Arkes sees in the Journal ‘a product of striking, even jarring, diversity.’ July 9, 2023 11:21 am ET On the campus of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, June 29. Photo: Eros Hoagland/Getty Images When the Supreme Court finally withdrew its sanction from the vast scheme of racial preferences and diversity coordinators, the editorial page celebrated “A Landmark for Racial Equality” (June 30). The front page of the Journal that day relayed a strikingly different story in a six-column spread: “Court Guts College Affirmative Action.” On June 28 the editorial page expressed its dubiety, and its serious reservations, when the court, in a gratuitous move, used a mooted case to accord more powers to judges to throw themselves into the “political thicket” of gerrymandering, to review and check the decisions of legislatures (“The Supreme Court’s Electi
On the campus of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, June 29.
Photo: Eros Hoagland/Getty Images
When the Supreme Court finally withdrew its sanction from the vast scheme of racial preferences and diversity coordinators, the editorial page celebrated “A Landmark for Racial Equality” (June 30). The front page of the Journal that day relayed a strikingly different story in a six-column spread: “Court Guts College Affirmative Action.”
On June 28 the editorial page expressed its dubiety, and its serious reservations, when the court, in a gratuitous move, used a mooted case to accord more powers to judges to throw themselves into the “political thicket” of gerrymandering, to review and check the decisions of legislatures (“The Supreme Court’s Elections Muddle”). But on the front page, the Journal found what was redeeming and uplifting in the judgment: “Justices Back Role of State Courts in Elections.”
All of which may show that one could bring about a product of striking, even jarring, diversity, while using employment criteria that are so evidently, and transcendentally, “nonracial.”
Prof. Hadley Arkes
Amherst College, James Wilson Inst.
Washington
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