One of the first polls on the Supreme Court’s decision Thursday to forbid racial preference in college admissions is out, and unsurprisingly, to anyone who is not embalmed in Critical Race Theory, most approve.
A majority of Americans approve of the Supreme Court ruling restricting the use of race as a factor in college admissions, though the country is more divided on other high-profile rulings and increasingly viewing the court as driven more by politics than the law, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court set new limits on affirmative action programs in cases involving whether public and private colleges and universities can continue to use race as one factor among many in student admissions.
A little more than half of Americans – 52% — approve of the U.S. Supreme Court decision on restricting the use of race as a factor in college admissions, while 32% disapprove and 16% saying they don’t know.
A majority of Republicans (75%) and independents (58%) approve of the ruling, while a distinct minority of Democrats approve (26%).
At the racial group demographic level, the decision is more popular.
Most white people (60%) and Asian people (58%) approve of the Supreme Court’s decision to limit the use of race in college admissions, while only 25% of Black people support the decision. Hispanic people are split, with 40% approving and 40% disapproving.
These findings closely parallel previous poll findings in which clear majorities of Americans viewed racial bean-counting as inherently wrong and unfair.
In early June, Pew Research Center released a poll showing that Americans rejected racial preferences in college admission by a 50-33 majority and said using race-based admissions standards made college admissions unfair and reflected negatively on minority students admitted to colleges who used race as a criterion. An AP/NORC poll taken in May believed the Supreme Court should get involved, but nearly 70% thought racial group affiliation should not weigh in the decision. Reuters/Ipsos published a poll in February that found 62 percent of Americans, including 46% of Democrats, were against race playing a role in college admissions.
Politically, this doesn’t seem to be an issue that will work for the Democrats. Hispanics split 40-40 in the ABC poll over race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Only 32% of Hispanic voters pulled the lever for Donald Trump in 2020 indicating this decision was more popular than the GOP. Black voters gave Trump 12% of their votes, making the Supreme Court decision over twice as popular. Asians find the decision 24 points more attractive than Trump. In fact, the decision has more than five times the popularity with Democrats as Trump.
The fact that the decision is a political winner should be a secondary consideration. Racial discrimination is wrong; it doesn’t matter which way it cuts. Affirmative action in higher education is a dangerous fraud that primarily benefits the children of upper-middle-class Black professionals at the expense of others. When applied to law and medical schools, it ensures the admission of people who are academically unqualified based on the bizarre notion that skin color brings some sort of unique knowledge or insight when all it actually brings is a person with a particular skin color.
I’m not pollyannish enough to believe the fight against the morally and ethically reprehensible practice is over because too many people owe their careers and jobs to its propagation; see Harvard University Signals It Has No Intention of Obeying the Supreme Court’s Anti-Racism Decision and The Supreme Court’s Decision to Continue Racial Discrimination at Military Academies Betrays the Nation and the Military The fact that majorities of Americans see using racial classification in college admissions is anathema to the way the nation should operate indicates that the next fights will be easier than this one.
