The Supreme Court, having upheld some form of race conscious college admissions four times between 1979 and 2016, is preparing to gut affirmative action procedures now that Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell have packed the court with far-right justices. It’s just the latest in a string of cynical, partisan moves by the Republican justices, who are gearing up to go along with a right-wing legal strategy of using Asian American students as pawns, arguing that Asian American students are being discriminated against by Harvard University.
The Harvard class of 2023 is 25% Asian, 12% Latino, and 14% Black; the U.S. population is 6.1% Asian, 18.9% Hispanic, and 13.6% Black.
According to a 2020 poll, 70% of Asian Americans support affirmative action, but “Students for Fair Admissions,” an astroturf group headed by white right-wing activist Edward Blum, is exploiting the anger of a few and the willingness of the right-wing Supreme Court majority embrace any politically convenient argument, however weak. And weak it is.
On The Brief podcast we discuss what the polls are saying—and what the polls cannot predict. The traditional and right-wing narrative continues to champion polling that downplays Democratic candidates’ successes, while ignoring polling (including their own, in some cases) that flies in the face of that narrative. Either way, it does not change the fact that you need to get out and vote! And after you vote, make sure to encourage others to get out and vote—especially those younger folks in your life.
RELATED STORY: Attorney tells SCOTUS why white men get 'thumb' on scale but not those kicked in teeth for centuries