A Blow To Race-Based Admissions, Ctd

John Cassidy worries that yesterday’s SCOTUS ruling in Schuette will have widespread consequences:

Without saying so explicitly, [the ruling] appeared to give its approval to ballot initiatives designed to roll back affirmative action in other areas as well, such as hiring employees, awarding contracts—and ending racial segregation. In effect—and, in the case of the Court’s conservatives, surely in intention, too—the justices on the majority suggested that if voters in individual states want to throw out laws designed to counter America’s long history of racial discrimination, that’s fine by them, and perfectly constitutional.

Bazelon is disturbed by what she sees as Roberts’ blindness to the enduring problem of racism in America:

I still think there is a difference between a local ordinance that bans busing or fair housing, which aim for equal treatment, and a ballot initiative that takes away a preference based on race. That’s how I made my peace with the outcome today. But I had my doubts when I got to a telling exchange between Roberts and Sotomayor. It’s over the basic underlying question that is nowhere resolved in this case: Whether affirmative action—or any awareness of race—is still needed or valid. …

I can’t read this without noting that in previous cases, Roberts has expressed his preference for color-blindness. This is where the conservatives on the court lose me. Good faith or no, it is at odds with reality to imagine that race no longer matters. I hope the states that ban affirmative action continue to enroll more low-income students as they also find ways to admit black and Hispanic applicants. But we still live in a world of race and class considerations. Not either/or.

The Bloomberg editors, on the other hand, support the court in letting the public decide:

On the issue of affirmative action, the court’s reluctance to be clear may be wise. (And if it’s not reluctance but inability, then it’s welcome.) As the court dithers over whether affirmative action is allowed, the public is increasingly deciding that it’s not necessary — not just in Michigan, where the 2006 vote was not close, but in the U.S. as a whole.

The public may well be wrong about that. Affirmative-action programs still have a crucial role to play in helping public institutions reflect America’s diversity. Yet they are not the only way. Programs that focus on class instead of race can have similar benefits. And there is evidence that colleges that make a concerted effort to attract poor and minority students can achieve results. Whether affirmative action has outlived its usefulness, however, is not a constitutional issue.

However, what the public really thinks of affirmative action isn’t always clear. Allison Kopicki finds that it depends on how the question is framed (NYT):

Using the phrases “special preferences” or “preferential treatment” in a question tends to reduce support for affirmative action. Americans want life to be fair: They generally don’t mind assisting groups that need help, but they don’t like the idea of that help coming at the expense of others. A 2007 Pew Research Center survey, for instance, found that when the question included the word “help,” 60 percent of Americans favored affirmative action; in a question that used the word “preferences,” support fell by 14 percentage points.

Specifying groups that would benefit from affirmative action also tends to reduce support for the policies. When specific groups — such as women, African-Americans or gays and lesbians — were named, support for the practice of affirmative action fell significantly, for all groups but one, as a 2009 Quinnipiac University survey found.

The only exception was people with handicaps. In the question that mentioned them, support for affirmative action was higher than for any other groups, and higher than on a broader question that didn’t name any group.