THE NEW YORK OBSERVER EDITORIALIZES: Affirmative Action in College Admissions Is Past Its Use-By Date.

Over the last 40 years the Court has accepted the premise that a diverse student body is a good thing. (The most compelling argument came from the heads of the military and the service academies who argued that having minority officers as role models for the enlisted troops was important to racial harmony and unit effectiveness.) But the oft-repeated argument of AA advocates—that a “critical mass” of minority students—is essential to get diverse opinions into the classroom is coming under closer scrutiny. Justice Roberts asked the lawyers, “What unique perspective does a minority student bring to a physics class?”

Even before the oral arguments were heard—and even more loudly immediately after—AA advocates suggested that campus unrest might increase if the Court did not uphold the UT race-based holistic system.

Sadly, what has been happening on college campuses these last few years has made a mockery of diversity. Ideas that don’t conform to the progressive narrative—and we think those ideas are anything but progressive—are deemed racist. And voices that disagree with that prevailing wisdom are shouted down.

We believe that real diversity—of ideas, of perspectives, of backgrounds—is a good thing. Quotas of any sort are not. Two federal lawsuits brought by Asian-American students against Harvard and the University of North Carolina—alleging discrimination in admissions—are on hold pending the resolution of Fisher II. Sixty-seven percent of Americans polled by Gallup say that it is time for affirmative action in college admissions to end. We agree.

Universities, a cynic might say, have promoted racial diversity as a way of covering up enforced conformity in more important areas.