The American Spectator

p> DEEPLY UNSETTLING br> Re: Tracy Robinson’s Settled Law : /p>

The author points out that the four dissenting justices in the Grutter case attacked the concept of “diversity” for its apparent phoniness. It can be attacked on other grounds as well: if “diversity” is a compelling interest, who actually benefits from it?

It can’t benefit the members of the narrow set of minorities at the expense of non-minorities whose academic records are superior. The Supreme Court has just confirmed the illegality of such practices.

Presumably, we are to believe that white and Asian law school students are the ones who benefit from the inclusion of members of a narrow set of minorities. Aren’t, then, the people chosen to achieve the arbitrarily defined level of diversity no more than teaching aids and props for the whites and Asians? Don’t the white and Asian students already have advantages over minority students? What happens if selected minority students drop out or flunk out at greater rates than the non-minority students? Is there then a compelling interest to retain them as students, regardless of grade, so that diversity can be maintained throughout the three years of law school? Or does diversity count only in the first semester?

p>My guess is that it counts only in the first semester and is therefore mainly a benefit to the self-images of the law school faculties. Just a little more self-anointing at the expense of the health of the American culture. Just a little more anti-Americanism, as Shelby Steele notes in today’s WSJ . br> — Pat Birmingham br> Hilton Head Island, SC