All the pretty little lies

The Great Revealing continues to unveil deceits.  From Say Farewell To The "Diversity Benefits" Rationale For Affirmative Action by Josh Blackman.  The subheading is The majority and dissent state the quiet part out loud: affirmative action was never about the educational benefits from diversity.

For nearly five decades, affirmative action was sustained on the opinion of Justice Louis Powell. The key vote in Bakke thought that a diverse student body could improve learning on campus. Ultimately, Grutter adopted Justice Powell's rationale, and held that universities have a compelling interest to pursue the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body. That simple premise spawned an entire institution around "diversity." Universities were forced to frame every decision they took in terms of using "diversity" as a way to help students learn. Of course, the real justification for affirmation action could be found in Justice Marshall's Bakke opinion. He grounded racial preferences for black students (and not other races) in the centuries of oppression, slavery, segregation, and discrimination. Indeed, the "educational benefits" approach tokenized minority students as curiosities for white students to learn from. Advocates for affirmative action had to grit their teeth to stay in the good graces of old white folk like Justices Powell and O'Connor.

[snip]

It was to be expected that the majority would discard the "educational benefits" rationale. But I was surprised at how little that rationale opinion featured in the dissents. Justices Sotomayor and Jackson wrote at length about white supremacy, institutional racism, and other reasons to justify affirmative action. But the purported benefits that can be obtained in the classroom were not on center stage. The phrase "educational benefits" appears only four times in Justice Sotomayor's dissent, and zero times in Justice Jackson's dissent.  Indeed, as Chief Justice Roberts pointed out, Justice Sotomayor cited Justice Powell "barely once," while Justice Jackson "ignores Justice Powell altogether." Rather, the dissenters rely almost exclusively on Justice Marshall's dissent. Under well-settled law, the universities have not invoked any sort of "remedial" interest. To the contrary, the dissenters adopted the en vogue theory that our society is plagued by structural racism and the Fourteenth Amendment must be interpreted to remedy that oppression. Chief Justice Roberts observed that "there is a reason" the dissenters have to rely on Justice Marshall's dissent, because they "surely cannot claim the mantle of stare decisis."

[snip]

Going forward, can we drop the "educational benefits" charade? No one ever actually believed that racial preferences were justified by those purported benefits. But if not "educational benefits," then what compelling interest would suffice? The more I read the Chief's opinion, the more I conclude that no interest would suffice. 

It was all a lie.  Racial diversity does not create educational benefits.  But for decades it was an accepted fig leaf.