Biden’s ‘Yes’ to Racial Preferences
A week into his presidency, Joe Biden issued a memorandum declaring “the Federal Government has a responsibility to prevent racism, xenophobia, and intolerance against everyone in America, including Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.”
Almost a year later, President Biden has now done an about-face. According to a brief by his solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, the same federal government that Mr. Biden says should be fighting racism against Asian-Americans is OK with using race to discriminate against Asian-American college applicants. Even more significant, Ms. Prelogar’s brief urges the Supreme Court not to hear a lawsuit against Harvard University that seeks to have the use of race in college admissions declared unconstitutional.
What gives?
At the center of it all is a 2014 suit filed by the nonprofit Students for Fair Admissions accusing Harvard of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race by institutions that receive federal dollars. In 2019 SFFA lost its case at the district court. In 2020, it was shut down at the First Circuit Court of Appeals too.
None of this was unexpected. SFFA then asked the Supreme Court to take the case. In June the high court asked the Biden administration to weigh in before deciding whether to grant cert.
Read the full story from the Wall Street Journal here.