MERIT TRUMPS RACE
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
149.67888
Summary
Chief Justice John Roberts rules that colleges and universities may no longer use race as a factor in admissions decisions. President Joe Biden immediately attacked the ruling, saying, "This isn't a normal court." To take all of this up, we invited the brilliant author Heather McDonald, who has been researching and writing about affirmative action for more than two decades, to join us.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Hello, everybody. I'm Lou Dobbs. This is the Great America Show. Good to have you with us.
00:00:08.520
The Supreme Court this week ruling colleges and universities may no longer use affirmative action
00:00:14.080
in their admissions process. In a 6-3 opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts,
00:00:20.700
the justices outlawed affirmative action and in so doing overturned cases going back almost a
00:00:26.760
half-century. For almost a half-century, those cases made racial preferences legal. The six
00:00:33.620
justices rule that skills, lessons learned, and challenges overcome are paramount in deciding
00:00:40.720
whether a person is admitted to a college or university, not race. As you would probably
00:00:46.740
expect, President Biden isn't happy. And he went before cameras to say he's not happy,
00:00:52.600
that colleges will now have to accept students based on their merit. And he attacked the Supreme
00:00:58.600
Court as he did so, saying this isn't a normal court. A curious thing to say. President Biden
00:01:05.680
gave his remarks shortly after the ruling came down, and he seemed to have gotten a little bit confused
00:01:11.500
about affirmative action, what it is, and where he actually stands on it.
00:01:16.760
And I strongly, strongly disagree with the court's decision. Because affirmative action is so
00:01:23.280
misunderstood, I want to be clear, make sure everybody's clear about what the law has been
00:01:28.600
and what it has not been until today. Many people wrongly believe that affirmative action
00:01:34.480
allows unqualified students, unqualified students to be admitted ahead of qualified students. This is not,
00:01:41.840
this is not how college admissions work. Rather, colleges set out standards for admission. And
00:01:48.380
every student, every student has to meet those standards. Then and only then, after first meeting
00:01:54.780
the qualifications required by the school, do colleges look at other factors in addition to their
00:02:00.620
grades, such as race. We cannot let this decision be the last word. One emphasis, we cannot let this
00:02:07.120
decision be the last word. While the court can render a decision, it cannot change what America
00:02:12.760
stands for. Biden, confused as he often is, says we cannot let the decision stand from the highest
00:02:19.900
court in America. That sounds an awful lot like he's a denier, doesn't it? A constitution denier
00:02:27.420
and an anti-merit critic as well. After his remarks at the White House, Biden made his way to New York
00:02:34.880
for a campaign event and he stopped by MSNBC to do a quick television interview. He was asked about
00:02:42.800
a comment he made earlier in the day in which he said, that's right, he said the Supreme Court
00:02:49.080
was not normal. Here's his explanation. You said this court is not normal. What did you mean?
00:02:55.880
What I meant with that is it's done more to unravel basic rights and basic decisions than any court in
00:03:02.260
recent history. And that's what I meant by not normal. It's gone out of its way to, I mean,
00:03:09.740
for example, take a look at overruling Roe v. Wade. Take a look at what the decision today. Take a look
00:03:15.420
at how it's ruled on a number of issues that have been precedent for 50, 60 years sometimes.
00:03:24.600
And that's what I meant by not normal. It seems President Biden isn't a fan of the rule of law,
00:03:29.800
which could explain his crime family. To take all of this up, we invited the brilliant author
00:03:35.100
Heather McDonald to join us. She's been researching and writing about this subject for more than two
00:03:40.720
decades. Joining us now is Heather McDonald, attorney, bestselling author of many books. Her latest is
00:03:47.740
When Race Trumps Merit, How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty,
00:03:54.440
and Threatens Lives. That book is also available at LewDobbs.com under the books section.
00:04:01.200
Heather, great to have you back with us here on The Great America Show. First,
00:04:04.520
your reaction to this extraordinary ruling by the Supreme Court rolling back affirmative action.
00:04:10.980
Well, it's a great step in the right direction. We have finally somebody who said that the whole
00:04:17.060
Supreme Court jurisprudence allowing racial preferences is incoherent. Roberts didn't overturn
00:04:23.900
those precedents, but he actually applied them honestly. And if, and this is a huge if,
00:04:31.360
Lou, if colleges were to actually obey the court's ruling, it would do a great deal towards erasing
00:04:40.600
the racial divisions in this country. Now, I'm not convinced that colleges are not going to do
00:04:47.220
everything they can to maintain their racial preference regime. And Roberts gave them a huge
00:04:54.060
way of doing so. There's a huge loophole in the decision. But one thing that I can say for sure,
00:05:02.020
Lou, the hysterical rhetoric that's coming out of Joe Biden, out of the dissents in the Supreme Court,
00:05:09.900
Sotomayor and Justice Jackson, the Democratic establishment, moaning that this is the end of
00:05:16.360
educational opportunity for blacks, those are completely phony. The same number of blacks are going to go to
00:05:24.900
college under this ruling as before. The difference is, is that one hopes they will actually go to colleges for which
00:05:33.540
they're academically qualified, rather than being catapulted into schools for which they are not
00:05:39.640
academically qualified. But the idea that absent racial preferences, that there's some kind of barriers
00:05:46.800
set up by colleges to black admissions is ridiculous. The colleges, they still have their arms wide open
00:05:55.880
to every black student they can possibly find. It may be a little harder for Harvard to poach black
00:06:02.620
students from Bates College or from Bowdoin College. But every black student who is qualified to go to
00:06:10.440
college will get admitted to a college at this point. And the issue here is, as you have discussed and
00:06:20.360
written about brilliantly and talked about brilliantly over the years, this is a situation
00:06:26.660
when race trumps merit. I think you should use that as a title of your book, by the way.
00:06:33.120
Oh, that is the title of your book, isn't it? Race trumps merit by Heather McDonald. We recommend it to
00:06:38.700
you highly. This has been one of the frustrations of American society. You can tell a child that he or she
00:06:48.220
can go to college and get into the college they deserve to be. That is, the elite schools by elite
00:06:54.940
performance and elite talent, you get to go to an elite school. Unless you fall back 100 places in
00:07:03.680
the class of 2050 or whatever it is, and because of racial preferences. This is madness, and it is
00:07:12.380
debilitating. There is no question about it. Absolutely. And what's so incredible, Lou, is that
00:07:18.960
the entire left-wing discourse around racial preferences is completely silent about the
00:07:25.380
academic skills gaps, which means that Harvard, if it wants to fill its 10% quota of blacks, has to use
00:07:32.660
massive racial preferences. If Harvard admitted on academic qualifications alone, its black share of the
00:07:40.140
student undergraduate body would drop from 10% or now 14% to under 1%. That's according to Harvard's
00:07:47.380
own calculations that it made in 2013. And the reason for that is because there's a massive academic
00:07:53.340
skills gap. But if you read the New York Times or the Washington Post, it's just this mystery.
00:07:59.700
You know, well, why do we need racial preferences to admit black students? I don't know, but we do,
00:08:04.520
you know, because otherwise there'll be such exclusion. No, there won't. Nobody is excluding blacks.
00:08:09.720
The only thing that will be different, we hope, is that schools will admit blacks on the same
00:08:16.680
basis as they admit white and Asian students based on their academic qualifications. But right now,
00:08:23.580
we're pretending, in the case of blacks, that academic skills don't matter. They do. Merit matters,
00:08:32.800
And learning matters, too. And we're hearing all of this nonsense from the left. And I mean nonsense,
00:08:38.200
ladies and gentlemen, and everybody listening to the sound of our voices, please call nonsense what it
00:08:44.200
is. Nonsense. When you hear these folks talking about a difference of white supremacy as the reason
00:08:55.040
that minorities are not moving forward in this society, you are listening to a pure on huckster.
00:09:00.580
It's nonsense. It's ridiculous. This isn't a matter of white supremacy. This is a matter of left wing teachers
00:09:08.420
unions who chose, along with the entire public health apparatus of the United States, to keep kids out of
00:09:15.280
school for two years. And the people who paid the worst price for that, of course, were the most disadvantaged
00:09:20.640
and the least educated and those who most needed that education. They have created a further educational
00:09:28.480
gap for the for those who are challenged and disadvantaged. Am I right or wrong?
00:09:35.360
I predicted this early on, Lou. You're absolutely right. And it is terrifying. The the school shutdowns
00:09:41.920
have widened the academic skills gap. The academic skills gap is what is driving any racial disparities
00:09:49.300
and any racial tension in our society today. That is along with the racial criminal offending
00:09:55.640
gap. Get rid of those two gaps and all racial disparities will disappear. But those are real
00:10:01.880
facts. That is not a function of discrimination. And and now after the lockdowns, black scores have
00:10:10.480
dropped even further, making the the felt need for preferences even greater, which are themselves
00:10:17.620
completely dysfunctional, iatrogenic. They harm their beneficiaries. So, yes, the teachers unions
00:10:25.220
bear a large part to blame. But as you know, Lou, I'm willing to go one step further and break the
00:10:30.580
biggest of all taboos, which is to say that the black culture has to step up to the plate and put a much
00:10:37.900
greater emphasis on academic achievement. Students, you know, if if teachers were honest, and it's only
00:10:43.880
those who are long out of the profession who will talk about what they experienced in their classrooms.
00:10:51.520
They're on average inner city classrooms are chaotic because the students are chaotic. They do not have
00:10:57.500
not learning self control at home. Their parents are not emphasizing that you have to show up in school.
00:11:04.160
You have to pay attention to your teacher. You have to bring your textbook home to do your homework.
00:11:08.660
You have to study for exams. Those things are not happening at the same rate in black families as in
00:11:15.420
Asian families, for example. I'm not saying there's not exceptions. Of course, there are. Of course,
00:11:20.140
there's many black parents that are riding their kids academic achievement that are pushing them forward.
00:11:26.240
That absolutely happens, but not enough to close the academic achievement gap. And until we have a change
00:11:33.620
in black inner city culture that says academic achievement and effort is not acting white,
00:11:41.180
the preference, the skills gap is not going to close. Listen to this, Heather, if you will. This is
00:11:47.320
Harvard's response to the Supreme Court ruling. They admit they will still use an applicant's essay
00:11:54.400
discussing how race affected his or her life during the admissions process. So that will be a signal
00:12:01.920
for the admissions committee. And in some cases, I think that might even be legitimate. But as a broad
00:12:10.540
policy, I think it's absolutely thumbing their nose at the Supreme Court decision to use it as simply
00:12:20.660
a placeholder for racial preference. Your thoughts?
00:12:26.080
Well, I disagree with you on that, Lou. That's what I referred to before with this huge loophole
00:12:31.980
that Robert's put into his decision. I think Harvard is completely justified in seizing on
00:12:38.020
this. I disagree with Harvard's rhetoric. I disagree with its self-righteousness. And it claimed also in
00:12:43.760
its back out the president's memo today that diversity and difference are essential to academic
00:12:52.180
excellence. That's a complete lie, as we just talked about. When diversity means lowering
00:12:57.240
standards, it's inimical to academic excellence. But Roberts did say himself that if a student
00:13:05.960
brings up his race in his admissions essay and talks about how that affected his life experience and
00:13:11.760
character, they will look at it. Well, that's just holistic admissions. Colleges have already been doing
00:13:17.660
that, and they will continue doing that. So we're going to have an even greater emphasis on
00:13:23.300
admissions essays. They've already been using those. And you better believe that every black student is
00:13:29.860
going to be coached to make the entire essay around his race. And it will be harder, especially if schools
00:13:38.000
get rid of test scores. And this is all complicated to game theory out, what they're going to do with
00:13:43.620
objective test scores. But the emphasis on holistic admissions will make it harder to detect whether
00:13:51.280
schools continue to use race in an impermissible manner. But given the Roberts loophole, it's not
00:14:00.240
really clear what's permissible and what's impermissible at this point. So that's why I'm not like 100%
00:14:06.260
cheering this. I would have liked Roberts to... I'm not either, by the way. You said you disagreed with me.
00:14:11.660
I'm not either. I'm not cheering it. As a matter of fact, I'm principally, I'm annoyed by their
00:14:16.040
approach, because it should be, in my opinion, an individual assessment, not a broad loophole
00:14:24.260
available to an entire demographic group. We're coming back with Heather McDonald right after
00:14:30.560
We're back with Heather McDonald. Heather, I had just clarified my position. Do we still disagree
00:14:44.660
Well, see, I don't know if... I'm saying that Roberts is to blame here. And I don't know if
00:14:49.300
you're saying Roberts is to blame or Harvard is to blame.
00:14:54.200
I'm saying Roberts is to blame. I'm saying Roberts has invited Harvard to do what it just said
00:15:00.200
Yeah. And I think I can say we're both right. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that
00:15:08.160
the ruling could have been tougher and cleaner and should have been. I think also, though,
00:15:14.560
that for Harvard to suddenly grandstand at this moment following that ruling is really beneath
00:15:22.420
Harvard's... what we would expect of that elite college.
00:15:27.540
Oh, God! Are you kidding? Like, you must be just doing this as a gesture towards the authority
00:15:36.580
of higher education. I have no expectations that Harvard would ever act in any way other
00:15:41.700
than morally righteous, hypocritical, condescending to everybody else. So Harvard's acting exactly
00:15:48.960
as I would have expected, because it does believe that it is the elite authority over all of
00:15:54.800
America. But as I say, Roberts has given them this opportunity, and not just Harvard, but
00:16:04.740
Well, I tell you what, I'm backing down. I am retreating from the broadside, from Heather
00:16:11.740
McDonald. And I am going to apologize for even thinking for a moment about assigning authority
00:16:20.220
to Harvard that it does not possess. But I do, and I do want everybody to understand why I love
00:16:27.220
having Heather McDonald on The Great America Show. She's part of what makes this country great
00:16:31.900
and keeps the issues absolutely straight. Heather, that was a wonderful takedown,
00:16:38.540
and I loved it, even though I was collateral damage in it all. Let's turn to, right now,
00:16:45.080
the fight. I think, really, we're seeing some real signs that the American people are finally
00:16:53.220
finding, at least a number of them, backbone. The ability to take on target, to go after Bud Light,
00:17:00.300
to actually say to Larry Fink at BlackRock, you're full of bull when you talk about equity,
00:17:07.540
and, you know, governance and nonsense, ESG. What is your reaction to the changing, it seems,
00:17:16.700
temper of the broad society? I completely agree with you here, Luf. Absolutely.
00:17:23.700
Thank goodness. I'm a pessimist. Yes. Well, no, I mean, this is the only time. And really,
00:17:29.760
you were simply treating Harvard as it ought to be. You were still faithful to what our ideal of higher
00:17:36.620
education could be. So I honor you for that, for living sort of aspiring towards the ideal rather
00:17:42.900
than being depressed by the real. But as far as the pushback, I completely agree. My nature is to
00:17:48.260
be pessimistic, and I didn't see this coming. I am particularly impressed by Governor Ron DeSantis
00:17:55.700
of Florida who has been taking the lead in saying, I refuse to go along with the race hustle, with the
00:18:04.060
trans hustle. I am going to outlaw what I can outlaw consistently with First Amendment. And he is staying
00:18:12.220
within, by and large, those rules. And we are seeing pushback and people that are not cowed by being
00:18:20.160
called a racist. And that's what it's going to take to turn this country around is for people no longer
00:18:25.620
to be scared to say it is not racist to expect that our doctors actually have medical qualifications
00:18:33.160
and not just racial qualifications. It is not transphobic, whatever the hell that means, to say
00:18:40.240
that children should not have their innocence stripped for them by premature, unnecessary knowledge
00:18:46.160
of sexuality, much less perverse sexuality. So this is a good thing. I hope it lasts. We saw pushback
00:18:53.400
during the COVID lockdowns on the school lockdowns. Then they kind of dissipated. Obviously, the schools
00:18:59.000
opened up again. We'll hope that people keep their eye on the ball in this case and use the power of the
00:19:05.480
marketplace. I don't, you know, I'm not a parent, but if I had a child, perhaps I would feel highly
00:19:11.580
conflicted if the child was demanding to go to a Disney theme park. Nevertheless, there should be
00:19:17.600
an across-the-board boycott of Disney, given its embrace of the premature sexualization of children.
00:19:24.700
Well, you will not be dismayed then to hear that today Wall Street issuing a downgrade of Disney stock
00:19:32.200
talking about uncertainty and clarity on its next horizon, which is the next quarterly report.
00:19:40.880
It may go well beyond that. Heather McDonald, thanks so much for being with us. We want to
00:19:45.900
recommend your wonderful book, One More Time, When Race Trumps Merit by Heather McDonald. We urge you
00:19:53.380
to read it. Fascinating thinking and writing by Heather McDonald, as always. Heather, we always
00:20:01.040
we always give the guests the last word. And if you would, your concluding thoughts here today.
00:20:09.060
Me too. It's always brilliant questions. And just keep fighting, Lou. And if your listeners keep
00:20:15.060
listening to you, they will get not just the courage, but also the backbone and the
00:20:20.180
the intellectual grounding that they need to take the country back.
00:20:25.180
God bless you. Thanks so much. Heather McDonald.
00:20:28.740
Heather McDonald. We recommend highly her book, When Race Trumps Merit.
00:20:33.580
Thanks, everybody. Our guest here Monday will be attorney Kurt Olson.
00:20:39.840
and what is happening right now in the persecution
00:20:43.860
of President Trump and much more. Please join us. Until then, thanks. God bless you.