'I really don’t understand it': Eric Holder torches the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling

02 July 2023

Former United States Attorney General Eric Holder appeared on Sunday's edition of Face the Nation and clarified what affirmative action means from a legal standpoint in the wake of the Supreme Court's Friday ruling that gutted the decades-old practice.

"I wanna ask you about affirmative action," CBS News moderator Margaret Brennan began.

"In this decision that race cannot be used in college admissions, there was also written by Chief Justice — the Chief Justice's opinion — some detail here that seems a little confusing, frankly, because it says, 'Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant's discussion of how race affected his or her life through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. In other words, the student must be treated on his or her experiences as an individual, not on the basis of race.' So you can discuss race in a college application, but it can't be, how do you understand this?" Brennan wondered.

Holder offered a blistering assessment of the 6-3 reversal:

I don't really understand it. It seems to me that that exception or that caveat is a little inconsistent with the rest of the opinion. And the other footnote that says, 'Well, this doesn't apply to the military academies,' which are in essence nothing more than colleges — I mean, you know, colleges with a specialized mission — again, it seems to be inconsistent with the, uh, the holding. You know, the thing is that, you know, this nation continues to grapple with issues of race. And to say that, race is not a negative factor for too many people in this nation is inconsistent with just what the facts are. The notion of affirmative action is to take into account just one of many things of when you look at qualified people, qualified students who are applying to colleges.

Look at that one, one of many things and say, 'Well, you know, for diverse, for the sake of diversity, we're gonna take into consideration the fact that we wanna have this Black kid be a part of our university.' But there's not a tension between the use of affirmative action and excellence. I think people need to understand that you don't — affirmative action doesn't mean you get into a school simply because you're Black. It means that you're qualified and that one of the factors that's taken into consideration of a qualified student is that person's race.

Watch the clip below or at this link.

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