Columbia Class of 2006 Blog

Affirmative Action Nonsense

Is everyone else as exasperated as I am by the US Supreme Court rulings on affirmative action? Of all the cases they've ruled on recently, a few have made me angry and a few have relieved me, but none of them has left me as confused as this one. It's the split ruling that's driving me crazy -- as far as I can tell, they've given permission for colleges to continue to practice affirmative action as long as they don't talk about it or lay down actual guidelines for its application. Michael Kinsley's column in Slate sums it up best: while the supremes have ruled that colleges can consider race as long as it isn't the deciding factor in admitting a student, Kinsley points out that if race is used as a factor at all in deciding on an applicant's admission status, it is necessarily the deciding factor for some applicants.

If I've misread the ruling, can somebody set me straight? It seems to me like complete nonsense, in which case I would have been happier with a straighforward ruling either way instead of this paradox.