The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday issued a major ruling that substantially undercut the unconstitutional foundation of affirmative action upon which race-obsessed Democrats have built their "diversity"-focused schemes.
That ruling, in the view of Obama-era Education Sec. John King Jr., is "heartbreaking for our democracy," according to the Daily Caller.
In truth, the ruling is only "heartbreaking" for those who are intent on engaging in clearly unconstitutional racial discrimination against certain races of people in the current day, ostensibly to benefit other races of people whose past ancestors suffered similar or worse discrimination based on the color of their skin.
During an appearance on MSNBC following the Supreme Court's ruling, former Education Sec. King insisted that the U.S. style of democracy is best when it is "diverse" and lamented that the court's elimination of affirmative action -- discriminating against one race in order to affirm or uplift another -- would result in fewer racial minorities attending elite universities or gaining the necessary education and skills to serve in "leadership roles" in the future.
"It’s heartbreaking for our democracy," King explained. "Our democracy is stronger when leadership is diverse, and moving to a place where selective institutions do not have the tool of race-conscious admissions means that we will see fewer black and Latino students in those institutions."
"We will see fewer black and Latino students prepared for leadership roles, whether it’s in government, business, the military, and so it is now incumbent on us in the higher education sector to do everything we can to preserve a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion," he continued.
King, who now serves as the chancellor of the State University of New York, went on to say that his school would "use every tool" available to them to continue to highlight race as a "priority" determinative factor in student admissions, despite the high court's ruling.
SCOTUSblog reported that the Supreme Court ruled Thursday on two combined cases brought by the same organization, Students for Fair Admissions, against both Harvard College and the University of North Carolina that challenged the overtly race-based affirmative action admissions process for student applicants.
Chief Justice John Roberts authored the 40-page majority opinion and was joined by the five other Republican-appointed Justices, with some of them writing concurring opinions of their own. In the minority were the three Democrat-appointed justices, though Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson recused herself from the Harvard case due to her prior position on that school's board, and some of them filed dissenting opinions.
At issue here was the argument from SFFA that the race-based admissions process for both schools violated both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution's 14th Amendment. And, as Roberts explained, the admissions processes for Harvard and UNC did indeed unconstitutionally violate the 14th Amendment's prohibition against racial discrimination, regardless of prior rulings that had previously upheld such affirmative action schemes.
"Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it. Accordingly, the Court has held that the Equal Protection Clause applies 'without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality' -- it is 'universal in [its] application,'" Roberts wrote at one point, citing other prior precedents. "For '[t]he guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color.'"
To be sure, Chief Justice Roberts said the ostensible goal of affirmative action admissions processes was "commendable" in aiming to better educate and train racial minorities to be future leaders and productive members of society, but pointed out that the manner in which the school's went about doing has resulted in unfair and unconstitutional discrimination against Asian and White students in order to benefit Black and Latino students.
"Because Harvard’s and UNC’s admissions programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points, those admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause," he wrote.
"Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin," Roberts concluded. "This Nation’s constitutional history does not tolerate that choice."
