Brit Hume: Supreme Court Not Striking Down Racial Preferences 'Anytime Soon'

Brit Hume: Supreme Court Not Striking Down Racial Preferences 'Anytime Soon'

In his commentary segment on Tuesday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel, network senior political analyst Brit Hume reacted to today’s decision by the Supreme Court upholding the state of Michigan’s ban on affirmative action.  He explained while this was blow to affirmative action, don’t expect it to be ruled unconstitutional anytime soon.

“Seven years ago, Chief Justice Roberts wrote in another affirmative action case that the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” he said. “That truth may seem to be self-evident but alas in the legal and logical wilderness that American justice long ago wandered, it is not. Affirmative action as it is euphemistically called, is a system of unequal treatment intended to remedy past unequal treatment. Under it, blacks and other minorities are given preference in such areas as hiring and school admissions.”

“How you might ask does this square with the 14th amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of law?” Hume continued. “Good question. But such unequal protection has been so long accepted by courts and politicians that in her dissent in the Michigan case today, Justice Sotomayor argued that Michigan’s ban on the use of racial preferences in that state’s college admissions was itself a violation of the 14th amendment. Such as the upside down world of affirmative action, in which racial discrimination is permissible and an effort to abolish it constitutes discrimination. The high court today may have struck a blow against racial preferences, but it certainly did not end them. Indeed, in his opinion today, as has been noted, Justice Kennedy was careful to say this was, quote, ‘not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved.’”

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