Justice Department: Diversity Trumps 1964 Anti-Discrimination Law

The Justice Department is telling university administrators they can grant valuable university slots to people in favored races and ethnic groups.

The department’s legal advice, announced late on Friday, says “race can be outcome determinative for some participants in some circumstances,” when administrators are weighing who gets acceptance letters from private and government-funded universities.

But the letter also highlights advocates’ growing worries about a pending Supreme Court decision that could ban the use of race in awarding university slots.

More importantly, the court could also damage the idea of “diversity” that progressives have used in universities and politics to attack conservative ideas and conservative political clout.

The 10-page report argues that diversity in the classroom is so important to universities that its trumps the plain language of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin.

The report was issued by the social-regulation divisions of the justice and education departments. It is titled “Guidance on the voluntary use of race to achieve diversity in postsecondary education.”

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