Froma Harrop is a liberal columnist based in Rhode Island who sometimes surprises. As in her most recent column in which she comes out for abolition of racial quotas and preferences in college and university admissions. She notes that Justice Sandra O’Connor, in her controlling opinion in the 2003 Grutter case, said that quotas and preferences (euphemistically referred to as “affirmative action”) should last only another 25 years; Harrop says it’s time to ditch them after nine.
Harrop does not make what I consider the two strongest arguments against racial quotas and preferences. One is that they are banned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I have always thought that was good legislation and I see no reason to change my view. The second is that they have negative effects on the intended beneficiaries, including but not limited to the fact that they cast a pall of illegitimacy over their genuine achievements. And I’m not sure how you do “affirmative action” for the economically disadvantaged. But, hey, she got to the right result, which is better than the large majority of liberal writers. And the very fact that she wrote this column suggests there’s an increasing unwillingness on the part of liberals to defend a public policy that is intellectually defensible for anyone who wants genuinely to help people classified as belonging to a racial minority groups and anyone who favors the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
