Lack of Racial Preference Transparency

Roger CleggUncategorized

There’s an important article in the Chronicle of Higher Education today about two amicus briefs filed in the Fisher II case, which challenges the use of racial admission preferences at the University of Texas.

The common theme in the two briefs — one filed by Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor, of Mismatch fame, and the other filed by Pacific Legal Foundation and joined by, among others, my organization, the Center for Equal Opportunity — is that universities are stonewalling when it comes to providing information relevant to their use of racial preferences. I might add that another common theme in the two briefs is that, when information is provided, it shows that schools are not following the limits on such discrimination set out by the Supreme Court.

The conclusion, of course, is that universities cannot be trusted to use race only a little bit, and that the time has come for the Court to rule that they can’t use race at all.