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The End of Affirmative Action?

State of the Union: Racial preference won’t go away. It will just go underground.

Annual March For Life Held In Washington, D.C.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The Supreme Court this week banned the use of race as a factor in college and university admissions.

It's unlikely the ruling will have the majority's desired effect. Schools and activists are already mulling in the pages of the New York Times how to do an end-run around the decision.

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What's more likely is that the admissions process will become even more opaque. More schools will ditch standardized testing requirements, and use the personal essay and other subjective criteria as proxies for race.

Racial preference in admissions won't go away. It will just go underground.

In overturning Bakke's holding about the supposed educational benefits of diversity, the Court at least returned the debate over affirmative action to a more honest station. It was never about whether and to what extent a diverse student body improved educational outcomes. It is about whether and to what extent we should reward and punish people for the actions of their ancestors.

Maybe the fact that a New York neighborhood was "red-lined" in 1935 really should entitle the son of a black professional athlete to have a built-in advantage over the son of a white Iowan pea farmer in the college admissions process. Many Americans find that argument compelling. I don't. And as we found out Thursday, the Supreme Court, to its credit, doesn't either.