Here’s a matter on which elites and the general public sharply differ: affirmative action in higher education. Recall that on June 23 in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin II the Supreme Court upheld the school’s use of race in admissions. Leaders at UT-A and competitive schools across the country praised the ruling. Meanwhile, Gallup, using questions drafted with the help of Inside Higher Ed, measured where the general public stood on the decision. Releasing its poll on July 8, Gallup found that nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said they disagreed with the decision. Thirty-one percent backed the ruling, and four percent had no opinion.
Gallup also asked “a nationally representative sample of the public” the extent to which, if at all, race or ethnicity should be a consideration in admissions decisions. Sixty-seven percent of white participants said “not at all” should it be a consideration, while 57 percent of black and 47 percent of Latino participants gave that same answer.
In his classic work, The Colorblind Constitution, law professor Andrew Kull writes that “over a period of some 125 years”—from before the Civil War through the middle decades of the 20th century—”the American civil rights movement first elaborated, then held as its unvarying political objective, a rule of law requiring the color-blind treatment of individuals.” During this period, says Kull, “the right of the individual to be treated without regard to race”—or “not at all,” to substitute the Gallup formulation—was “strenuously defended as a moral and political end in itself.”
Poll results like these showing large majorities opposed to the majority opinion in Fisher II and supportive of equal treatment without regard to race suggest the extent to which the civil rights movement of yesteryear is influential still today. And the best advocate of equal treatment under the law remains Justice Thomas, who wrote in his dissent in Fisher II:
“The Constitution abhors classifications based on race because every time the government places citizens on racial registers and makes race relevant to the provision of burdens or benefits, it demeans us all.”
