The Court’s Unsatisfying Affirmative-Action Decision

There will come a day when the U.S. Supreme Court decides that affirmative action is no longer constitutional. The question is whether that day comes before or after the rest of America decides that affirmative action is no longer necessary.

All that’s certain is that neither day is today. In a 7-to-1 ruling, the court agreed that the University of Texas can consider race as a factor in admissions. A diverse student body, wrote Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, “is a constitutionally permissible goal.” How a university goes about reaching that goal, however, is a question for the courts, which must satisfy themselves that there are “no workable race-neutral alternatives” to achieving it. The Supreme Court returned the case to the lower courts to figure this out.