Fisher vs. Texas is a very interesting case, because in 2013, when the Supreme Court ruled 7-1 and maintained that colleges were allowed to pursue racial diversity through affirmative action, the court said that every college would have to demonstrate that all other alternatives that do not involve racial preferences have not worked, and that affirmative action is the only workable option that will lead to racial diversity within that college. This is very different from the outcome of Grutter vs. Bollinger in 2003, in which the court supported universities using racial preferences to choose the candidates that would be accepted into their schools. That case in 2003, was a 5-4 decision, in which 4 justices disagreed with the decision. The fact that the 2003 case was a very close decision and that Fisher vs Texas put some restrictions on the use of affirmative action, saying that it can only be used as a last resort, shows that affirmative action is a very important topic and that those who are for it have very good reason to support it and that those who are against it also have understandable reasons why they don’t agree with the policy. However, last semester when I took an Intro to Sociology class, and the topic of affirmative action was brought up, the professor basically said that anyone who doesn’t agree with affirmative action is a racist. She said that those opposing affirmative action claim that they disagree with the policy because they favor equality, but in reality, this is a form of color-blind racism, and it is unacceptable to disagree with affirmative action. I was very shocked at this because whether or not I support affirmative action, college is a place where both professors and students can voice their opinions on hotly debated topics such as this one, and to shoot down one side of the argument and label it as inherently racist, in my opinion, is very inappropriate.
I am shocked that someone would say something so blatently unuanced. These are complex issues and certainly, it is important to our society to let everyone have access to the resoures that will allow them to have the best chance to succeed. Personally, I have no doubt that some people opposed to affirmative action are doing it because they are racist, but IMHO, in higher education, we are supposed to help people come to their own conclusions, not be dogmatic in this way. These are complicated issues, and although I do feel that the Supreme Court is edging in too conservative direction on many issues, I would not say that anyone who supports their actions is, point blank, racist. They may just be parsing the legal issues more narrowly. One way of reading the Texas case is that they think maybe they should look for other ways to do this, not to stop it totally. But that might also be the motive of some. You can see from this political season that we are a highly polarized society on all of racial/religious/socio-economic grounds.