Sotomayor’s Fake America

By Charles C. W. Cooke

Friday, June 29, 2023

 

In her dissent in the affirmative action cases, Justice Sotomayor writes:

 

Notwithstanding this Court’s actions, however, society’s progress toward equality cannot be permanently halted. Diversity is now a fundamental American value, housed in our varied and multicultural American community that only continues to grow. The pursuit of racial diversity will go on. Although the Court has stripped out almost all uses of race in college admissions, universities can and should continue to use all available tools to meet society’s needs for diversity in education. Despite the Court’s unjustified exercise of power, the opinion today will serve only to highlight the Court’s own impotence in the face of an America whose cries for equality resound.

 

Which “society” would that be, exactly? Who believes that “diversity” as achieved by affirmative action is a “fundamental American value”? What is this “face of an America whose cries for equality resound”? To read Sotomayor, you’d assume that racial discrimination in higher education was popular. But it’s not. It’s extremely unpopular. Here’s the New York Times‘s breakdown of public opinion in this area:

Resounding? Yeah — in the other direction.