Aloha to Affirmative Action

Pre-1995 California's explicit consideration of race would
have admitted a non-white, poor applicant but rejected a
white non-poor applicant of similar achievements. (WSJ video)

Gallons of ink have been spilled (sorry, dear reader, I can't come up with a post-newspaper-age metaphor) over the Supreme Court's decision on affirmative action earlier today.

In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard Ccllege

The Supreme Court found it unconstitutional to consider race in university admissions, eliminating the principal tool the nation’s most selective schools have used to diversify their campuses.

Thursday’s 6-3 decision will force a reworking of admissions criteria throughout American higher education, where for decades the pursuit of diversity has been an article of faith.

A few personal comments:

1) Growing up in melting-pot Hawaii, I hadn't heard the term "affirmative action" until I came to the Mainland.

2) I'm so old that Asian-Americans were viewed as an "underprivileged minority" when I went to college in the 1970's. I could be the beneficiary of affirmative-action policies that began in the late 1960's. (In my defense both my grades and board scores were at least as high as my white roommates'.)

3) I always wondered whether the existence of affirmative action tainted the credibility of Asians' or any other minority individuals' accomplishments. I was happy that Asian-Americans stopped being the beneficiaries of affirmative action, if they ever were, and were evaluated on their own merits by the late 1980's in the Bay Area.

4) I am all in favor of giving special consideration to students who grew up in difficult economic, family, and social environments. And one would have to be blind not to see that black and Hispanic students fall disproportionately into that category. Helping everyone in those circumstances regardless of race, IMHO, is the right policy.