Why opposition to Grutter is not hypocritically based on modern liberalism

I would like to recommend my August 2003 article, “Does Grutter violate the Fourteenth Amendment?” In it, I address the sticky question: in opposing the Grutter decision, am I hypocritically appealing to a principle of non-discriminatory equality that only exists because of modern liberal re-interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment, such as Brown, that I oppose? Or is Grutter in violation, not just of the modern liberal expansions of the Fourteenth Amendment, but of the Fourteenth Amendment itself? I determine that while the Fourteenth Amendment allows “separate but equal” treatment of black and white students, it would not allow “together but unequal” treatment of black and white students, i.e., it would not allow different admissions criteria for different races at the same school. Therefore, without having any recourse to wrongly decided modern decisions such as Brown, we can say that the University of Michigan law school’s race preferences for black applicants would not have been allowed under the Fourteenth Amendment as originally and properly understood. The same court that found against Plessy would have found in favor of Grutter.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 23, 2005 11:29 AM | Send