Affirmative-Action Decision Affirms Block of Merrick Garland

With this crew, there’s no alternative to holding tough.

Daniel J. Flynn

An affirmative action Supreme Court on Thursday upheld affirmative action at public universities.

Shocker.

Justice Anthony Kennedy dubbed “student body diversity” at the University of Texas as “central to its identity and educational mission,” and noted evidence the university advanced reporting “feelings of loneli­ness and isolation” among minority students after the earlier Hopwood case restricted racial preferences and quotas, as reasons to discriminate against whites and Asians in admissions. Such concerns overrode the concerns of the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause.
Kennedy’s opinion bolsters the opinion of Republicans seeking to hold firm against holding a vote on President Obama’s Supreme Court pick Merrick Garland. Conversely, it also suggests they should not elevate their hopes should Donald Trump win the presidency.

The best president in our lifetimes nominated Anthony Kennedy to the high court. Granted, the Democrats borked Ronald Reagan’s first choice (Robert Bork) and his second choice (Douglas Ginsburg) effectively killed his nomination by admitting in the era of “Just Say No” that he said yes to marijuana in the previous age of “More, More, More” (What were they smoking in the ’80s?). But Reagan still picked a guy more known in California political circles than known for brilliant jurisprudence.

Think of a Supreme Court decision that played fast-and-loose with the text of the Constitution. Did a justice selected by a Democrat or Republican president author that opinion?......To Read More....