Mike Luckovich for June 30, 2023

While great progress has been made in advancing equality of opportunity (not outcomes), the lasting effects of centuries of race-based oppression — from enslavement to Jim Crow to segregation to implicit bias — still linger, and disfavored minorities (African Americans whose ancestors did not come by choice and did not voluntarily accept the “social contract”; Indigenous Americans who were here before anyone else; Latino Americans who are the descendants of indigenous peoples from conquered civilizations in lands further south) face obstacles that were created by racial considerations, and can only be eradicated by recognizing those realities and dismantling them based on the race-based obstacles as they exist and, yes, that means factoring in race (the causative agent) in remediating the injustice.

If only blue-eyed people have been forced for years into deep pits based only on the color of their eyes, and then when it comes time to get people out of the deep pits you put them in you give the ladders to the blue-eyed people in the pits, it is not oppression against the people who are already topside; the ones who put them there in the first place. The ones who were never in the pits are not the ones who need the ladders. Sheesh.

Clarence Thomas, who rose to the heights of power and largesse from a billionaire sugar daddy (who worships Nazis, collects Nazi paraphernalia and has Nazi statues in his garden) with the benefit of Affirmative Action, as he acknowledge in his separate concurring opinion, now seeks to pull the ladder he climbed up behind him.

Chief Justice Roberts carved out a military exception. THEY KNOW that, when it comes to national defense, how worthy Affirmative Action can be. As Ketanji Brown Jackson noted in her UNC dissent (she recused on the Harvard case having been on Harvard’s board), they will allow Affirmative Action in sending soldiers to the battlefield, but not executives to the boardroom.

Yep. But bear in mind that the top tier schools are DESIGNED PURPOSELY to perpetuate the power of families who are already in power. There’s no possible way that “legacy” admissions will go away unless it’s legislated. And then enforced.

The best evidence that affirmative action and racial quotas destroy character comes from the white guys who benefited from generations of it and are still resentful that their preference was taken away.—Elizabeth Moon

And the he smacks him with the ladder

Rich white guys uber alles.

All people are created equal. But it took human beings to create systems that made them unequal. It’s those systems that Affirmative Action countered. But then, what decision did you expect from Supreme Court justices appointed by a POTUS once found guilty of race based housing discrimination?

This SCOTUS is full of racists. Time to expand the court under a Democrat.

The fatwas continue to be issued by the GQP-appointed kangaroo court.

Luckovich’s strip today is quite accurate. People don’t want to acknowledge this truth but the real Affirmative Action is from parents who buy their kids into college who otherwise wouldn’t make it grade-wise, along with the “legacies, large donors, and athletes”. But yeah, as long as you target Blacks, Browns, or Native Americans, that’s quite ok.

SCORP (Submissive Court of the Republican Party): Up the oligarchy!

So often, we just accept that money, power, and privilege are perfectly justifiable forms of affirmative action … —Michelle Obama

One positive situation is that most colleges see the value in having a diverse student body. This quality has been the result of forced affirmative action upon the colleges and so their thinking has been adjusted to be more open to the needs of minorities.

This SCOTUS majority shows that every vote in every election is important. This SCOTUS is like the MAGA – GOP that engineered them into office: no shame, no honesty, no values.

Legacy has a door with a butler.

One of the plaintiffs Abigail Fisher lost her case in 2016 because it turned out that her grades were mediocre. Then she joined a “conservative” (regressive) board that brought the case back. She should now be sued and check to see if any of her testimony qualifies as perjury.

Sure wish someone would starting handing out functional petards for some SCROTUS members — the better to more speedily and efficiently hoist them.

Permanently recused, let’s say.

Curious to see the people registering to vote Democrat after this decision and all the recent decisions. Affirmative action was banned in California when it was a Red State. How has that worked out? When Roe was overturned, women registered to vote in record numbers.

Leaves more space for the students that can buy their admission.. Universities like money.

His making the courts point!! Maybe he should read what all justices said instead of jumping on the bandwagon

With Machevellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy on one side and complacency and low voter participation on the other … how much longer will the US be a democratic republic?

The problem isn’t defined in a way that will solve the problem. It wouldn’t be necessary to limit admissions to anyone if there were just enough opportunities to go to college to go around for anyone who wants to go. Granted, that might mean some people can’t do the work, but they are already in most schools. They usually aren’t there after Freshman year, and those who are earned the right to be there. The rich benefit from the caste system that keeps college out of the reach of all but those who are already well off. They can pay wages that require two or three jobs per household just to keep food on the table, while they keep the majority of the GNP produced by the people who are living that way. And, they are assured that future generations will remain in that situation, since tuition isn’t an option. The average college graduate pays about $7800 more a year in federal taxes than the average high school graduate. Over 30 years, that totals about $234,000. If that’s divided by the 4 years it takes to get a college education, the government would break even if it paid every student $58,500 a year to attend school.The best investment we could make to keep America strong is make all higher education, including trade schools, etc totally free, as long as the student is making decent grades, and increase the number of schools and teachers to make room for all who can profit from the education. There is no better way to spend money than to invest it in our people, to give them every opportunity to be the best they can be. Yes, It’s good for them individually, but the country is its’ people so what’s good for them is good for the country.

That’s my main issue. If the idea is that all students applying are to be treated the same, then if Affirmative Action is wrong and should be struck down — legacy admissions should be struck down. The concept that students who worked hard to get into an ivy league school shouldn’t be denied because space was saved for minorities should apply to studens who worked hard to get into an ivy league school only to be denied because space was saved for students who hard to make sure they were born to parents who went to that ivy league school. The door should swing BOTH ways!

Get back in the hole god intended for you.

This act of unconstitutional bigotry proudly brought to us by the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, and their supporters.

The SCOTUS is sending our country to pre-civil war times. They are imposing their religious delusions on all of us.

One little quibble, Mike. Legacy admissions don’t need a ladder. They already have a dedicated elevator

I am from the global south, in a country where the whites are about 8% of the population. Many (most) of those who argue against affirmative action do so because of the fear of losing their positions of privilege, which were unjustly foisted upon the majority black population before 1994. In the US, I gather that the roles (numbers at least) are reversed, in that the black population makes up around 14% of the population. It is vital to consider the background and history as well as what one is trying to achieve; there is no doubt in my mind that for the US and my country, affirmative action is still necessary.

Black people put Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court and he repaid them with ‘scorn’: Joy Reid

MSNBC host Joy Reid said on Thursday that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas “has been on a mission to dismantle every institutional attempt” to help anyone who has been disadvantaged by society.

Reid, who appeared on All in with Chris Hayes, added that Thomas appears to operate from a “kind of rage, a cold rage,” against the second half of the 20th century.

After this “Summer” happens this may fade in importance.

So dammed sad :-(

Should have given the guy on the right an elevator

What about all the black legacies…………………………………………………..oh.