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United States Supreme Court and a major loss for discrimination. Welcome back Lager here today on this Thursday 855-3912-10 on Twitter at Rich Zioly, the Supreme Court of the United States just banned racial preferences in college admissions. And here to talk about it, Jonathan Butcher joins me. His latest piece is that exact title and I'll post a link to that. Jonathan is the Will Skillman Senior Research Fellow in Education Policy

at the Heritage Foundation. Jonathan, thanks for joining me. Great to be with you. This is a big win. I was very happy to hear the Supreme Court rule this way. I was very happy to read Justice Clarence Thomas' concurring opinion. I think it's a big win.

Absolutely is a big win. I mean, I think for the court to say in the majority opinion that if you're going to get rid of discrimination, you have to get rid of discrimination everywhere.

And that they are essentially continuing the Brown versus Board decision from 70 years ago, right? This is definitely a step towards looking at treating people equal under the law and recognizing that when you use race as a determining factor, you're violating some of the very basic principles in our Constitution.

And you talk about that in the beginning of your piece. You write that on May 17th, 1954, the New York Times reported that the United States Supreme Court set aside the separate but equal doctrine in education and its Brown V Board of Education ruling, racial segregation would no longer be permitted in K through 12 public schools.

Today, the court finally extended that and once and for all laid to rest the idea that prejudice is okay in college emissions. You know what I think, Jonathan? I think as I listen to the corporate media, why not about this and people like what be Goldberg wine and President Biden talking about how to get around this.

What they're forgetting is that these colleges were literally discriminating against Asian American students based on their race. How that's not a bigger part of the story here.

And how anybody could think that that's okay is just beyond me.

Well, in Harvard's announcement after the ruling came out, they said that they're going to hold true to their values while they try to work within the confines of this new decision.

Well, how their values could include racial discrimination and why that's okay is anyone's guess. I mean, look, Harvard was saying that they would not admit more Asian American students based on their race or ethnicity.

And that, I mean, that is just flat wrong. I think that those who have been pushing the idea of critical race theory and that discrimination is appropriate because of past discrimination.

I mean, this is absolutely a great ruling to use to counter those kinds of arguments.

I think we're getting to a place where we can now talk about what are the obstacles that interfere with people trying to succeed?

How do we get kids into higher performing schools and out of persistently failing schools? How do we build great communities and keep them safe with well-trained police officers and on and on?

These are now the policies that we can focus on. Now that we can move away from just thinking about what racial preferences need to be used.

Are there any differences in the two cases? Any differences in the two rulings that came out today?

Well, Harvard was specifically about the 14th Amendment. The UNC case was about Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

But the Title VI of the Civil Rights Act was really a reflection and federal law of the 14th Amendment. And so they, you know, the same rulings and opinions apply.

You know, I think what we're going to see in the future now are that colleges who want to go around this ban on racial preferences, they are going to face potentially lawsuits from students and from advocacy organizations that ask them to make their transparency, excuse me, their admissions processes more transparent.

I mean, I think we're going to find out a lot more about how colleges are admitting students now, especially when there is the suspicion that they are using race as a determinative indicator when students apply.

Well, that's what I wanted to ask you about Jonathan Butcher because you heard Joe Biden today talk about creating a new standard.

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