Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action policies in college admission are unconstitutional as they violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This ruling was long overdue, and Americans have demonstrated repeatedly that it’s time to turn the page on race-based admissions.
Yet sadly, the radical left doesn’t see it that way. Leftists thrive on perpetuating the myth that institutionalized racism is still a thing, that America is a racist country, that minorities can’t get ahead on merit alone, and that affirmative action is still as needed today as it was when it began under President Lyndon B. Johnson. They came out of the woodwork blasting the decision, shedding crocodile tears about how devastating it is. And of course, they questioned the legitimacy of the court — because that’s what they always do when the court issues a ruling they don’t like.
But of all the absurd responses to the ruling, the one that really got under my skin came from Michelle Obama. Why? Because, despite her condemnation of the Supreme Court ruling, her statement appeared to make the case for ending affirmative action at first.
She began her statement by explaining how when she was at Princeton, she was one of the few black students on campus and how proud she was to have been accepted at such a prestigious school. “I knew I’d worked hard for it. But still, I sometimes wondered if people thought I got there because of affirmative action,” she said in a statement. “It was a shadow that students like me couldn’t shake, whether those doubts came from the outside or inside our own minds.”
If we accept her statement at face value, then one can only wonder why she’d want any student to experience the suspicion they weren’t accepted on merit. There’s dignity and pride in one’s accomplishments that affirmative action policies rob minority students of.
Yet of course, Obama immediately concludes that colorblind admissions robs minorities of opportunities.
“So today, my heart breaks for any young person out there who’s wondering what their future holds — and what kinds of chances will be open to them,” she claims.
She’s wrong, of course. An overwhelming majority of Americans oppose race-based admissions. That includes solid majorities of minorities. Why? Probably for the same reason she said. Does anyone really want their success to be questioned and assumed to have not been based on merit?
Related: Yes, America Is Ready to Turn the Page on Affirmative Action
Obama wrote that while affirmative action wasn’t perfect, “there’s no doubt that it helped offer new ladders of opportunity for those who, throughout our history, have too often been denied a chance to show how fast they can climb.”
I’m sure few would argue that isn’t true. But after fifty years, the need for affirmative action has long passed. If proponents of affirmative action believe that the need for affirmative action today is the same as it was in the early 1960s, then they’ll never believe America has turned a corner. They’ll always believe that America is racist.
Why? Because they’re committed to convincing minorities that they can’t get ahead on their own. Democrats have spent decades telling minorities they can’t succeed in America without the government’s help. That’s the key to their power. And once more minorities discover that they have the ability to succeed on their own, they won’t need the Democrats anymore.
