According to an NBC report on Wednesday, the Biden administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) told a federal judge that it is dropping a high-profile discrimination lawsuit against Yale University. The case came as a result of the Trump administration’s efforts to combat illegal and baselessly discriminatory affirmative action programs. The DOJ stated that an investigation had revealed that the university’s admissions program had illegally discriminated against Asian American and white applicants, claiming that these demographics were only one-tenth to one-fourth as likely to be admitted as their African American peers with similar credentials.
Concerns, often expressed by conservatives, about these programs have escalated in recent years, particularly in regard to how modern higher education admissions practices prioritize applicants of historically marginalized communities and discriminate against those belonging to supposedly privileged demographics. Proponents of such programs often use conservatives’ opposition to affirmative action as a means of smearing them as stereotypically racist.
The Left has placed much of their focus over the last year on ending “systemic racism,” despite not having identified any policies that are objectively discriminatory, and instead has pointed to unfortunate isolated incidents, such as the abuse of George Floyd over the summer, to induce emotional responses. Specifically, the new Biden administration has vowed to place an emphasis on dismantling “systemic racism,” while also extensively calling for unity.
However, the affirmative action programs in place in many of America’s higher education institutions are, by definition, discriminatory towards ethnic groups and hence can be correctly deemed as “systemically racist.” With the evidence presented from the case in hand, and by invoking the basic definition of discrimination, particularly in regard to race, how could one claim to be in support of ending “systemic racism” and simultaneously support such blatantly discriminatory programs as affirmative action?
If irrefutable evidence of systemic racism were presented to the American people, I suspect the vast majority of the public would be in favor of destroying it as soon as possible. While the Left continues to cry wolf by manufacturing issues that are not supported by any quantitative data, such as systemic police brutality, conservatives have identified an irrefutable example of discrimination in affirmative action. This should be an area of unity, and for an administration calling every single day for unity, Biden’s Justice Department has made an egregious error by allowing this blatantly racist policy to continue. The case against Yale University should continue to be pursued, and the investigations should continue into other universities for similar crimes against other well-qualified applicants.
