233 Comments

While in high school, Ketanji Brown Jackson intended to attend law school and become a judge. Her counselor advised her that applying to Harvard was too ambitious. I wonder if that counselor is still living and rues having given such bad advice.

Expand full comment

This is certainly an important issue!

Expand full comment

The Cases before the Supreme Court regarding the consideration of race as one of MANY factors in selecting which individual(s) will be offered a spot in admissions has a very significant historic nexus - PAULI MURRAY.

I expect most people have not heard the name before. There is an award-winning documentary "MY NAME IS PAULI MURRAY."

In summary, Pauli Murray - a descendant of a prominent white North Carolinian in the manner that chattel slavery in this country manifested - was denied admission to the University of North Carolina due to race.

Life then led to the Howard University School of Law, where as valedictorian it was tradition to go for further study at Harvard Law School. Yet gender was cited to deny that opportunity as well.

I recommend learning of this remarkable life.

It reads like a "Forrest Gump" of civil, women's and trans rights throughout history - whenever and wherever a movement happened in the USA, Pauli Murray is a part of it.

Yet these are all areas the SCOTUS and elements of the GOP/GQP are vehemently attacking.

More Ketanji Brown Jacksons please!

Expand full comment

I assume Equal Protection in the college admissions process means no discrimination based on the legally established categories of race, gender, age, etc. I believe Diversity is an asset but achieving it is obviously complicated. Are quotas representing the population, given capable candidates, the best way of achieving Diversity?

Expand full comment

Of course it matters. Equal opportunity

Expand full comment

Race always matters! We always have to be that much better to even be considered as possibly equal.

Expand full comment

Dans a fag. He always has been. Now hes a race baiting fag

Expand full comment

So glad we now have another inlightened and honest member of the Supreme Court.

Expand full comment

Affirmative action is part of civil rights legislation. Getting rid of it means it wasn’t needed in the first place. What else is our illustrious Supreme Court getting rid of next?

Expand full comment

Not sure that would help, but it's worth a try.

Expand full comment

I’ll try to weigh in on the topic. Much of my 70 years was informed on civil rights and affirmative action. I have always been a believer in this as a remedy for inequality. A lot of people benefited from these programs. Yet, poverty and inequality exists. Why? I’m not a social scientist and I can’t answer this question well. But I have observed that there is little family planning in urban environments. Does this contribute to poverty? I think so. What happens when a teen is impregnated and drops out of school? Generational poverty continues and it is inbred to the next generation. I went to an urban school. In freshman home room, I always remember a talk I overheard between the young teacher who was a single mother and a girl in class who also was a mother, a teen mother. Even at my youthful age, I thought how could this young mother stay on course in schools and equally serve the needs of her child. I don’t think many can. I often wonder how that girl made out. She would be about 68 now — perhaps a grandmother. Did her child grow up and take advantage of higher education? I don’t know. Stats might suggest that poverty continued in that family line. And her child became a mother and dropped out of school only to repeat this over and over. And if it did, who is at fault? Society or those who never addressed family planning?

I’ll leave this as an open question. Thank you.

Expand full comment

She is brilliant, measured, and she is right!!

Expand full comment

Thanks to President Biden for appointing this judge to The US Supreme Court. It is nice to have someone that will be on the US Supreme Court for at least 18 years. Ro Khanna, a US Representative from California is trying to get legislation through the US Congress to limit US Supreme Court justices to 18 year terms. In the future, US Supreme Court Justices may have 18 year terms implemented which does away with lifetime terms on The US Supreme Court. This court has become too political and it needs to be reigned in.

Expand full comment

Now, race matters (unfortunately, a great deal). In an ideal country, as for many fast friends and partners already, race distinctions are artificial.

Race distinctions vis-a-vis college admission would vanish if educational opportunities were provided freely to everyone via existing technical means (television, internet, distance learning etc).

Sure, there are drawbacks but the gains of opportunity far outweigh the costs of making educational resources artificially scare!

Expand full comment

When are we, as Americans, finally going to realize that we have to accept the continued recourse of the years of slavery and continued prejudice against non-white people has produced a society of white privilege! Regardless of whether your family did or did not own slaves, the benefits received by being white, have far outweighed any measure of the affirmative action which have been implemented in this country. The sad fact is that as a white person we don’t even begin to comprehend those privileges we automatically have that the non-whites don’t have.

Expand full comment

Strawbridge seems like a fool.

Expand full comment