The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear the potentially groundbreaking case of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. The Fisher case concerns the practice of using affirmative action in college admissions, and the ruling could end the practice entirely.

Since the last case on this topic reached the Supreme Court much has changed that suggests an end to affirmative action is a real and likely possibility. Good riddance.

The Supreme Court’s most recent case concerning affirmative action was Grutter v. Bollinger. The court ruled that Michigan had a compelling state interest to have a ‘critical mass’ of minority students to maintain its status as an elite institution.

The dissenting opinion on the court argued there was no compelling state interest in having such a particular institution and argued the university’s policies were the equivalent of an unconstitutional quota system. The establishment of affirmative action directly conflicts with the 14th Amendment’s ‘equal protection clause,’ which states that no state shall ‘deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’

Section 1 of the amendment, which includes the ‘equal protection clause,’ was deliberately written to apply to race and enforce the principle that the Constitution is a colorblind document as written and signed by our founders. Every aspect of affirmative action violates the principles and the text of our most precious document.

Affirmative action falls short on grounds other than those of the Constitution. Socially, it casts a shadow over all minorities whether they are affected by the policies or not. Once the policies are known to be used in certain areas, all people in the area are seen as having achieved something less because some were given preferential treatment.

Justice Clarence Thomas, an outspoken critic of affirmative action off the bench, said, ‘Once it is assumed that everything you do achieve is because of your race, there is no way out.’ Policies that are in place to give opportunity to disadvantaged groups result in these groups being overshadowed by the doubt of whether they are deserving of their accomplishments.

Morally affirmative action is tough to justify. The policies of preferential treatment based on race were and still are justified as a program to increase opportunities for specific communities and increase equality.

Justice Thomas refuted this rationalization one of his many written opinions from the bench stating, ‘There is a ‘moral … equivalence’ between laws designed to subjugate a race and those that distribute benefits on the basis of race in order to foster some current notion of equality.’

Today affirmative action is more popularly justified as a way to increase diversity. There is no distinction to be made here because the principle of preferential treatment remains the same and cannot be considered any more moral as a result. The fact that someone’s merits can be cast aside because they are not of a certain race or gender is reprehensible.

As a society, we should hold ourselves to a higher standard than using unimportant measures to judge a person’s worth. All the factors about one’s race or genders seem fairly trivial when put up against their professional experience or their intellect. Who someone is as a person goes much deeper than simple appearance.

Race or gender is not a merit or something to put on a resume. It’s random and doesn’t make someone better or worse in any way. Culture and race are something that one should be proud of and can derive personal purpose from, but they should never supersede a person’s merit or accomplishments.

Let’s hope the court makes the right decision and puts an end to this misguided practice.

Patrick Mocete is a senior political science and policy studies major. His column appears every Thursday. He can be reached at pdmocete@syr.edu. 

Published on March 7, 2012 at 12:00 pm