Chill on Affirmative Action Ruling

It’s likely that this week the Supreme Court will end race-based affirmative action in college admissions. It’s possible that the court’s ruling will go beyond that to shake affirmative action programs in other realms. We’ll see.

Here’s the political danger for Democrats: They’re likely to over-react. A year ago SCOTUS handed them a gigantic political advantage with the Dobbs decision, upending Roe v. Wade. All of a sudden abortion was no longer an organizing boon for pro-lifers; it was a motivating force for liberals and a persuasive argument to move independents, moderates and even a few Republicans into their column. Abortion calmed what should have been a national Republican wave last fall, and in Wisconsin it helped reelect Gov. Tony Evers and swung the state Supreme Court to the liberals. There’s every reason to think the issue will play well again for the blue team next year.

Unless Democrats step on their own story. If they go all-in on restoring affirmative action through national legislation or bills in various states they run the risk of giving the story legs and thus diminishing their advantage on abortion. For Democrats the thing to do is to chill over affirmative action while they keep turning up the heat on abortion.

Why? Because being pro-choice is popular while affirmative action is not. About two-thirds of Americans are pro-choice and that has endured for half a century. And, in fact, Americans have become more pro-choice since Dobbs. A recent Gallup poll found that 69% of us support abortion rights in the first trimester, the highest percentage since Gallup started polling on the question.

By contrast, a recent Pew Research poll found that 50% of Americans oppose race-based affirmative action in college admissions while only 33% support it. And the passion is on the negative side, with 29% saying they strongly oppose it while only 11% say they strongly support it.

In other words, abortion is a big winner for Democrats while affirmative action is a big loser.

Moreover, on the merits a ruling against affirmative action is no great loss. As liberal Black columnist Cynthia Tucker wrote last week: “While equal justice advocates will be upset by the court’s action, the demise of official affirmative action policies won’t hurt Black or brown students as much as advocates fear. That’s because the far bigger problem facing those students is the lack of preparation for college and the lack of funds to pay for a four-year degree. This is especially true for Black men, whose college enrollment dropped 14% from spring 2020 to spring 2021.”

California blocked race-based affirmative action, going beyond just college admissions, through a referendum in 1996. Attempts to restore it since then have failed three times. Failed three times in the bluest state in America — more indication of just how unpopular these policies are.

And the world did not come to an end. To quote a recent story in the Los Angeles Times: “The (state university) system’s enrollment today nearly fully reflects the state’s diversity. Among its 422,391 undergraduates in fall 2021, 47% are Latino, 21% white, 16% Asian and 4% Black. That closely mirrors the demographics of the state’s 217,910 California high school students who met UC and CSU eligibility standards in 2020-21: 45% are Latino, 26% white, 16% Asian and 4% Black.”

By the way, that story reflects a disturbing theme among liberal news outlets like NPR, PBS and the New York Times. Those outlets always lead with dire statements from some expert. Only down in the body of the report do they include data to suggest that losing affirmative action really didn’t have much long-term impact. So, credit a brave liberal columnist like Cynthia Tucker for leading with it.

On the law and the merits I think the Supreme Court will be right if it does as expected this week. The politics are up to the Democrats. They will be obliged to wail for several weeks. That can’t be avoided. But then they need to let it fade while they continue to hammer away at their pro-choice stand and the Republicans’ anti-abortion extremism.