Texas: Racial Preferences Now, Racial Preferences Forever!

The
University of Texas has filed its main brief
in Fisher v. University of Texas, and it’s a doozy. It argues, among
other oddities,

• that
  the continuing “underrepresentation” of blacks and Hispanics requires the
  continued use of racial preferences to increase their numbers, but that the
  reason for increasing their numbers has nothing to do with increasing their
  numbers; it is necessary only because the “diversity” they provide is essential
  for the “acquisition of competencies required of future leaders”;
• that
  assessing “the educational benefits flowing from student body diversity” might
  seem “amorphous,” but “trained educators” are competent to do so and courts
  should defer to their expertise;
• that
  because Texas has no specific “race-based target” it should be allowed
  virtually unlimited latitude to give as much weight to race as it chooses;
• that
  race-based preferences are necessary to combat racial stereotypes, presumably
  including the stereotype that minorities are incapable of succeeding without
  race-based preferences;
• that
  not only is it too soon to limit or overturn Grutter; it will always be
  too soon because there are still “thousands of classes” where blacks and
  Hispanics are “nearly non-existent” and “diversity” is required not just
  institution-wide but in all classes.

I
discuss these and other aspects of the brief in more detail here.