A Contradiction in Wonderland

George Will is onto something when, in a discussion of the arguments of a case the Supreme Court is set to hear, he sees similarities to Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass.

[O]pponents of Michigan's amendment are simultaneously arguing contradictory propositions: Racial preferences serve everyone by producing diversity in academia, but banning preferences is unconstitutional because they primarily benefit a minority.

As far as I am concerned, Will is barely scratching the surface of the multi-layered absurdity here. Seeing the proper purpose of the government as being the protection of individual rights, rather than controlling the economy or redistributing wealth, I see the entire case as equally absurd. Another pundit notes that the case is a chance to end "racial preferences in college admissions". The government has no business running schools or telling them whom they can or cannot admit.

I certainly think that, if and while the government is running some colleges and regulating others, it should not permit racial discrimination of any kind in the admissions process any more than it would segregated restrooms. Given recent legal history the bizarre arguments Will outlines, I don't think that even such a victory is necessarily at hand or that it will be more than very narrowly applied. That's too bad, since government-enforced racial quotas violate freedom of assication no matter where or why they occur.

And we haven't even gotten around to the absurdity of the whole idea of  the government "serv[ing] everyone" by making them less free...

-- CAV