Affirmative Action - Last Monday’s Supreme Court Oral Arguments In Students For Fair Admissions vs. Harvard

[solutions]

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Subject: Last Monday’s Supreme Court Oral Arguments In Students For Fair Admissions vs. Harvard
From: Solutions
Date: Sat, November 5, 2022 11:02 am PDT
To: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
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Dear John,

I read with interest the Suggested Answers to this month’s 4 so-called “Short Quizzes” which were featured in this morning’s weekly e-mail and have two questions:

(1) How do you think last Monday’s Supreme Court Oral Arguments In “Students For Fair Admissions vs. Harvard” fit in today’s imbroglio of, to use Jonathan Kozol’s terminology, “the restoration of Apartheid schooling in America”?

(2) Has the Supreme Court case of “Students For Fair Admissions vs. Harvard” been discussed during any of the weekly 90-minute Zoom chats of members of your Harvard Law School Class of 1967?

Your friend,

Solutions


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Subject: Re: Last Monday’s Supreme Court Oral Arguments In Students For Fair Admissions vs. Harvard
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
Date: Sun, November 6, 2022 4:32 pm MDT
To: Solutions
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Dear Solutions,

Thank you very much for your e-mail.


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How IMHO Monday’s Supreme Court Oral Arguments In “Students For Fair Admissions vs. Harvard” fit in today’s imbroglio of, to use Jonathan Kozol’s terminology, “the restoration of Apartheid schooling in America” --


As you must have inferred from the Suggested Answers to the Short Quizzes and from my life-long dedication to providing inner-city children with a decent education (please see Q&A-15 of the Short Quiz “Kozol Quiz No. 1 - America’s 30% Permanent Under-Caste” which is available by clicking on sixth item on the list at viewforum.php?f=714&sid=6804b4218305ac9 ... ec5c3d6113), “affirmative action” at the college level is NOT an adequate remedy since it is far too late in the process in which the overwhelming majority of disadvantaged children have dropped out long before high-school graduation.

HOWEVER, I staunchly support “affirmative action” as an inadequate gesture toward solving the problem.


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Whether the Supreme Court case of “Students For Fair Admissions vs. Harvard” has been discussed during any of the weekly 90-minute Zoom chats of members of my Harvard Law School Class of 1967 --


By way of background, the Supreme Court case involves solely undergraduate admissions to Harvard – and it has been combined with a similar case brought by “Students For Fair Admissions” against the University of North Carolina.

Also BTW, Harvard Law School also appears to have engaged in “affirmative action” since its website -- https://hls.harvard.edu/dept/jdadmissio ... and-facts/ -- had listed last year’s entering class as comprising 56% “students of color” – and currently lists this year’s entering class as comprising 53% “students of color.”

For our 8/15/2022 weekly Zoom chat, I sent the group an e-mail on 8/13/2022 saying my agenda proposal had been approved that we discuss, inter alia, “Students For Fair Admissions vs. Harvard” and the Harvard Law School “53% students of color” statistic by saying vis-à-vis our 7/25/2022 Zoom chat which had NOT focused on affirmative action but rather the US News & World Report law-school rankings –

“I reminded everyone about how Nancy Schectman Nemon has often reminded us of how difficult it was for ‘women’ (her term) to find legal positions in 1967 and how she, in effect, was the beneficiary of ‘affirmative action’ in beginning her 43.5-year career in the Boston Office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (which was D/HEW back then). And surmised that the same may be true today for the HLS 56% ‘students of color.’ Accordingly I implored everyone, noting that one of the components of the USN&WR formula is the proportion of graduates who obtain a position within 12 months of graduation requiring a law degree, to encourage all of our colleagues in our old firms to hire HLS ‘students of color’ (ditto all of our friends & acquaintances in a ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ campaign to do the same re hiring and re importuning their friends & acquaintances to do the same in an unending chain).”

Unfortunately, I was accused near the beginning of our 8/15/2022 Zoom chat of being “a racist” and later received e-mails from several other classmates who had leapt to the conclusion that I was against “affirmative action.”

Needless to say, there was only a brief and irrelevant discussion of affirmative action in the wake of the chilling “racist” accusation.

I am ashamed to admit that so many of my classmates suffer from a lack of reading comprehension.

At least my reputation was defended by Peter Trooboff who is still active in Covington & Burling and who worked on their Supreme Court Amicus Curiae brief in “Students For Fair Admissions vs. Harvard.” He had been unable to attend the 8/15/2022 Zoom chat but his defense which was circulated to the group, said --

John

Sorry I had to miss today. It is quite surprising and regrettable that your summary of the case*** would be viewed as racist. The core of the Petitioner’s argument is that the Harvard and North Carolina admission policies and procedures have resulted in the actual denial of admission to Asian-American students. Indeed the Petitioner’s brief pulls no punches in saying almost explicitly — “Harvard did it to Jews in the 1920’s and 1930’s and has done the same to Asian-Americans in the 1990’s and 21st Century. “

There is a legal aspect to Petitioner’s argument based on whether the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act (similarly interpreted) allow any consideration of race for admissions purposes (I.e., Brown v. Board of Education means no use of race for any purpose ever — strict scrutiny can never be enough of a control — never means never!). And there is a factual aspect, can Harvard and North Carolina achieve diversity without taking account holistically of race in admissions procedures and are there alternative methods that ignore race that Harvard and North Carolina could utilize to achieve the same diversity as that achieved under current procedures. The latter factual issues were the subject of a lengthy District Court trial with many experts that reached conclusions in favor of the Harvard and North Carolina procedures that the Court of Appeals upheld after a careful and thorough review of the trial court proceedings and findings applying a strict scrutiny standard. To me the most unusual aspect of the case is the extent to which Petitioner seeks to retry the factual issues in the Supreme Court. That explains, I expect, the structure of the Harvard reply brief that focuses initially on the attempt to retry the facts in the Supreme Court.

Peter

[*** Upon hearing what had transpired, Peter Trooboff contacted my accuser who stated that his epithet pertained solely to my “summary of the case.” My “summary of the case” in my 8/13/2022 e-mail which was called “racist” had said in toto – “SCOTUS has granted certiorari in “Students for Fair Admission Inc. vs. President & Fellows of Harvard College” with oral argument scheduled for 10/31/2022 (please see https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/c ... d-college/). If memory serves, appellants are primarily Asian-Americans whose admissions suffer in order to admit unqualified African-Americans.” NB: the accuser’s epithet was NOT based on the false assumption that I was opposed to affirmative action, like several of our classmates exhibited a lack of reading comprehension by assuming.]

So the answer to your second question is “not really” vis-à-vis any discussion in the Zoom chats themselves.

There certainly was no discussion in the Zoom chats themselves of my 8/13/2022 proposal quoted in the fourth paragraph of this section to support Harvard Law School’s “affirmative action” by consciously hiring, and activating friends and acquaintances in an unending "Six Degrees of Separation" campaign to hire, Harvard Law School’s “56% students of color.”


Your friend,

John K.