01 July 2023
Students v. Harvard and UNC Ignores Preamble
The Preamble of the U.S. Constitution states, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” It guarantees that whatever appears later in that document will help ensure what has been defined to mean a more perfect union and the general welfare in the over 200 years since the Founding by public discourse and preceding decisions of the Supreme Court itself.
All of that has been ignored by the Supreme Court’s decision on June 29, 2023. The general welfare of the republic cannot be ensured without correcting the racial discrimination that has prevented the perfection of its existence as a Union as well as its domestic tranquility. The objectives of the Constitution laid out in its Preamble are the responsibility of the Supreme Court to protect as much as any of its subsequent clauses. America’s intellectually formative institutions, including public and private universities, have chosen affirmatively to use racial balancing of their student bodies as a means for fulfilling their mission to shape the indiscriminate nature of our society. That choice is not only constitutionally lawful but has also proven to be effective.
The Roberts opinion in Students v. Harvard and UNC assumes the freedoms and privileges of the Union’s citizens are granted to them individually by the Constitution. However, minority university applicants also are members of collectives that have a history within the national community that started even before its establishment as a British colony. That membership has sometimes handicapped their ability to enjoy the personal benefits of the rules of our co-citizenship that have evolved over time. The Supreme Court must, therefore, prevent the laws and practices of the country from depriving those minority community members of any of those benefits. The Constitution does not grant rights and privileges to minority communities; but it does attempt to remove restraints on those rights and privileges when imposed by the nation’s majority.
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