Commentary: The Fallacy of Race Neutrality in Affirmative Action’s Dialectic

Commentary: The Fallacy of Race Neutrality in Affirmative Action’s Dialectic: Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to the affirmative action policy at the University of Texas. In assessing students not in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class, who are guaranteed admission, UT uses a “holistic” application review process with many factors, one of which is race “to achieve the educational needs of a diverse student body,” said UT President Bill Powers.

Most of the opponents of UT’s affirmative action policy, in hailing the court’s decision to hear the case, have declared they oppose affirmative action due to their support for racial equality.

"The only way to usher in true racial equality in America is to end race-based discrimination,” asserted Stephen Balch, chairman of the National Association of Scholars (NAS), an organization that signed a friend-of-the-court brief for the case. “There are many race-neutral ways of promoting equal opportunity on our college campuses, and we urged the court to choose these instead.”