đ In SFFA, the Court found that the universitiesâ reasons for promoting diversity interests through college admissions processes were not âsufficiently coherent for purposes of strict scrutinyâ, in part, because (1) they were not measurable and (2) they did not have an ending.
đ The Court said that reaching an end point to promoting diversity interests by comparing the racial makeup of an incoming class to a previous class (or to the population in general) amounts to âracial balancingâ and is âpatently unconstitutionalâ. In other words, it seems the Court was saying that the universitiesâ processes had a flavor of quotas.
đ Therefore, setting âsome proportional goalâ by measuring racial makeup runs afoul of the Equal Protection Clause and cannot be utilized as a way of saying âmeaningful representation and diversityâ has been achieved.
đ The Court went on to clarify that race is not totally off the table for purposes of college admissions; however, rather than focusing on skin color, universities could consider how race has affected a studentâs life, âbe it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwiseâ.
âMany universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individualâs identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin.â (SFFA, 2023)
đ Thus, the future of DEI should be focused on problems, not people, as an aspiration for satisfying the stricter scrutiny applied in the DEI New Normal.
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