A Court in Fantasy Land

The U.S. Supreme Court shut a door Monday that could have allowed it to look into the real world, not the world as we wish it would be. The high court, in deciding not to take up a challenge to California’s Proposition 209, which outlawed race and gender preferences in state hiring and school admission, chose to suggest instead that all “preferences” should be outlawed. That would be fine, if that’s what Proposition 209 did. But what Proposition 209 in fact did was to outlaw preferences only for women and minorities. All other preferences remain solidly in place.

It would have been illuminating had the court chosen to take up the matter instead of simply deferring to the decision of lower courts. That might have led to an honest national discussion about the whole notion of “preferences” in American society: When are they acceptable and when are they not--and why?

Are veterans’ preferences fine because they are earned through military service? Should the elderly receive preferences because they happen to live past a certain age? Should African Americans be given some sort of preference because of a unique past and current and more subtle discrimination documented in housing and rental studies? Is there something wrong with a public university making a decision that it’s not to the greater good if all of its engineering students are male? Are preferences based on whom you know or how much your uncle contributed to a school all OK--as long as the preferences given aren’t based on being minority or female?

Interesting questions. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as if we’ll get honest answers any time soon.