Alternet - White America’s Toxic Ignorance: The Real Privilege That Goes Unspoken
Chauncey DeVega defends Affirmative action against Abigail Fisher and Antonin Scalia.
Is Justice Antonin Scalia auditioning for a job as Donald Trump’s ghostwriter? His recent comments on Fisher v. the University of Texas, a landmark SCOTUS case about the future of affirmative action programs at America’s colleges and universities, would seem to suggest that he is. During the oral arguments for Fisher v. the University of Texas, Scalia said that:
There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to get them into the University of Texas, where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well. One of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don’t come from schools like the University of Texas. They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they’re being pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them…I’m just not impressed by the fact the University of Texas may have fewer [blacks]. Maybe it ought to have fewer. I don’t think it stands to reason that it’s a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible.
Scalia’s suggestion that black college students need special remedial schools because they are not able to compete on an “advanced” level is deeply problematic in a number of ways.
It is cringe-worthy because Scalia is channeling the ugly pseudo-scientific racism of influential right-wing texts such as Charles Murray’s “Bell Curve,” which claims that there is some causal connection between a person’s “race” and intelligence.
*Note: I had to change the title, because the original, would not fit.
