As Donald Trump moves to undo every last trace of Obama's legacy, the WSJ reported that on Tuesday, the Trump administration reversed Obama-era policies that encourage the use of race in college admissions "to promote diverse educational settings." Instead, the Trump administration will encourage the nation’s school superintendents and college presidents to adopt race-blind admissions standards.
The reversal would restore the policy set during President George W. Bush’s administration, when officials told schools that it “strongly encourages the use of race-neutral methods” for admitting students to college or assigning them to elementary and secondary schools.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions made the official announcement Tuesday afternoon.
"The American people deserve to have their voices heard and a government that is accountable to them. When issuing regulations, federal agencies must abide by constitutional principles and follow the rules set forth by Congress and the President," Sessions said. "In previous administrations, however, agencies often tried to impose new rules on the American people without any public notice or comment period, simply by sending a letter or posting a guidance document on a website. That's wrong, and it's not good government."
The decision comes amid a DOJ probe whether Harvard was illegally discriminating against Asian-American students by holding them to a higher standard in its admissions process. The administration revived the probe last year after Obama civil rights officials dismissed a similar complaint.
While the decision does not change current US law on affirmative action, it provides a strong illustration of the administration's position on an issue that could take on renewed attention with the departure of Justice Anthony Kennedy from the Supreme Court.
The guidelines, which were issued jointly by the Obama Justice and Education departments, laid out legal recommendations for schools looking to use race as an admissions factor to boost diversity at their schools. Call it state-sponsored affirmative action. However, the WSJ reports that Trump admin officials will argue that the documents, published in 2011 and 2016, go beyond Supreme Court precedent on the issue and mislead schools to believe that legal forms of affirmative action are simpler to achieve than what the law allows.
It is hardly a surprise that the Obama officials who implemented the policies disagree: Anurima Bargava, who headed civil rights enforcement in schools under Obama’s DOJ, disagreed with that assessment, saying the documents simply offered guidelines to schools and colleges looking to continue using affirmative action legally; she countered by attacking the current administration’s action as signaling that it doesn’t favor racial diversity.
“The law on this hasn’t changed, and the Supreme Court has twice ruled reaffirming the importance of diversity,” she said. “This is a purely political attack that benefits nobody.”
Then again, perhaps the guidelines were not that innocent, and come as a 2014 lawsuit is unfolding in federal court against Harvard, filed by a group called Students for...