(Originally published by The Chronicle of Higher Education on July 10, 2023)

Colleges must follow the law. But they don’t need to help the court fulfill it’s worst ambitions. 

On cue, the Supreme Court has invalidated race-conscious affirmative action in higher education. The majority opinion was preordained, but the dishonesty and cowardice of that opinion and the concurrences are still breathtaking. It’s especially galling that the court cloaked an attack on integration in the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment and the Brown v. Board of Education decision. And make no mistake: Opposition to affirmative action is part of a segregationist agenda that began with opposition to school desegregation in the 1950s and has taken new and more-underhanded forms as evolving public opinion made an open defense of segregation untenable.

(Continue reading the opinion essay on The Chronicle of Higher Education’s page here)