This is Hear Me Out. I'm your host Celeste Henley.

Earlier this summer, the Supreme Court ruled that race conscious admissions programs at

Harvard and the University of North Carolina were unconstitutional, effectively ending a

firmative action nationwide. We don't know yet how much this will change the faces we

see on college campuses. But advocates for diversity and social mobility have framed

this is a major, major step back. And you've probably heard that argument. But what you

might not have heard is the argument that a firmative action was never the gift that

some thought it was, and it might actually have failed the people who needed it most.

I'm seeing these statistics that we see in our newspapers play out. None of my friends

have gotten to college. All these other black kids that I know who grow up in poverty,

they don't make it. There's this great distance between me and my friends.

Freelance journalist Bertrand Cooper joined us on Hear Me Out in just a moment. Stay with us.

Welcome back to Hear Me Out. I'm Celeste Henley. While I'm painfully aware of the social and

economic ravages which have fallen my race and all who suffer discrimination, I hold our

enduring hope that this country will live up to its principles that all men are created equal

are equal citizens and must be treated equally before the law. The university's admissions policies

are rudderless, race-based preferences. Those policies fly in the face of our colorblind

constitution. That's an excerpt from the concurring opinion that Justice Clarence Thomas wrote

earlier this year when the Supreme Court effectively dismantled affirmative action.

Justice Katangi Brown-Jackson joined Justice Sonia Sojma-Yor in the dissent, adding,

with let them eat cake obliviousness today. The majority pulls the ripcourt and announces color

blindness for all by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.

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