*Authored a memorandum supporting Plessy v. Ferguson;
*Drafted a constitutional amendment designed to limit the enforcement of Brown v. Board of education;
*Wrote another memo endorsing Texas' "Whites Only" primaries;
*Harassed (according to reliable witnesses) minority voters in Arizona in the 60s; and
*Was the lone dissenter in favor of granting Bob Jones University tax exempt status
-- the "honor" of writing the decision limiting Michigan's affirmative action policies in Gratz v. Bollinger?
Like all affirmative action decisions, this one claims to rest on Justice Powell's decision in Bakke, which held that race could not be a "decisive factor" in race-based admissions. The gravamen of Rehnquist's "reasoning" seems to be that, because Michigan gives 20 points for minority status vs. 5 points for "extraordinary talent", race is fatally "decisive" in Michigan's admissions process, even though all applicants need 100 points for automatic admission. How does 20 = 100? Let Rehnquist 'splain it you:
"...the effect of automatically awarding 20 points is that virtually every qualified underrepresented minority applicant is admitted." (emphasis added)Get that? Remember when affirmative action was evil because it let in unqualified applicants? Now, the evil is that, if you are black and otherwise qualified for admission... you get in! There goes the neighborhood.
As I read it, by Rehnquist's logic, any racial factor in admissions cannot be greater than non-racial factors, if the policy is to survive scrutiny. With Gratz "decisive" now means "having any impact whatsoever."
Ginsberg and Souter, dissenting, appear to agree. After doing the elementary math that Rehnquist glosses over, they go on to observe:
"The very nature of a college's permissible practice of awarding value to racial diversity means that race must be considered in a way that increases some applicants' chances for admission. Since college admission is not left entirely to inarticulate intuition, it is hard to see what is inappropriate in assigning some stated value to a relevant characteristic, whether it be reasoning ability, writing style, running speed, or minority race.Yes, the Supremes upheld race-based criteria in college admissions in Grutter v. Bollinger, but just as with the relentless whittling away at Roe v. Wade, this is a strategy of death by a thousand cuts. With Gratz, Rehnquist continues his life's work hamstringing minority advancement, and validates all over again Chris Rock's mordant observation: "There ain't a white person in this room who would trade places with me--and I'm rich."