Racial preferences in college admissions have long been deeply unpopular, and three years ago, the Supreme Court declared them unlawful, in a sweeping ruling that portended doom for other race-conscious policies to promote diversity or remedy past discrimination. Some research indicates that, in the aftermath of the civil-rights era, the achievement gap between rich and poor students now dwarfs the gap between white and Black students. Even so, well-intentioned blue-state Democrats keep pushing for race-based affirmative action, to their own political detriment, rather than supporting a much fairer policy of providing a leg up to economically disadvantaged people of all races.
In February, the California State Assembly passed, by a 54–14 vote, a measure seeking to place on the November ballot a change in the state constitution to allow racial preferences in K–12 education and in higher-education scholarships. (The state Senate has not yet acted on the measure.) In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani released a 375-page Racial Equity Plan last month that said, “New York’s history has been one of colonization, exploitation and racial oppression”; among other measures, the plan reaffirms the city’s intent to steer contracts to minority-owned businesses. Late last year, Democratic supermajorities in the Maryland House and Senate overrode Governor Wes Moore’s veto of legislation to study reparations for the descendants of enslaved people.
In huge swaths of the country, the Democratic brand has become anathema. The party will struggle to recapture the White House and reclaim the Senate unless it can persuade some red-state voters to take a fresh look at it. One obvious move would be for the Democrats, who have hemorrhaged working-class voters, to abandon their stubborn support for politically radioactive racial preferences. Significantly more Americans believe that economically disadvantaged people of any race deserve special consideration in admissions and employment decisions, and such efforts do not run afoul of laws against racial discrimination. Nevertheless, many Democrats cannot bring themselves to accept the Supreme Court’s ruling—or the public’s attitude—even when doing so would help their prospects immensely.
