A group of 82 corporations on Monday signed onto amicus briefs filed in the Supreme Court defending Harvard and the University of North Carolina’s consideration of race in their admissions processes.
The companies, including Apple, Google, Meta Platforms, Starbucks and General Electric signed the briefs arguing that racial and ethnic diversity positively benefits the experience of students at the universities and leads to more diverse workplaces that “enhance business performance.”
“Research and experience demonstrate that racial diversity improves decision-making by increasing creativity, communication and accuracy within teams,” the companies wrote in one brief.
The briefs came in response to a pair of cases against the universities in the Supreme Court, both filed by Students for Fair Admission, or SFFA, — a group founded by conservative Edward Blum.
In the Harvard case, SFFA argues that affirmative action rules discriminate against Asian American students while the North Carolina case alleges that Asian-American and White students are discriminated against in favor of Black and Latino applicants.
The group has filed similar lawsuits against affirmative action nationwide.
The companies cited “strong evidence” that supports the notion that university students who study with diverse peers “exhibit enhanced cognitive development” that is needed for a range of skills necessary in the current economy.
“Students of all racial backgrounds benefit from diverse university environments,” the brief read. “Building a diverse classroom experience is how to turn out the most informed critical thinkers. Classroom diversity is crucial to producing employable, productive, value-adding citizens in business.”
A second amicus brief filed by major science and technology companies argued that a racially diverse workforce helps science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, companies recruit and retain talent while also contributing to innovations and new technologies that are in line with the needs of their global customer base.
“Companies whose workforces are racially and otherwise diverse will be better equipped to identify and address any number of scientific and technological challenges,” the companies wrote. “Tech companies work on unconventional questions that require creative solutions and diverse groups consistently outperform homogenous groups on exactly that type of problem solving.”
IBM, Aeris Communications, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University signed a third brief that asserted diversity not only serves to “promote better outcomes for students in STEM” but also “contributes to better science.”
“As such, American businesses at the forefront of innovation in STEM depend on the availability of a diverse cross-section of talented graduates from the nation’s most rigorous and elite institutions.”
The Supreme Court in 2016 ruled 4-3 that “considerable deference is owed to a university in defining those intangible characteristics, like student body diversity, that are central to its identity and educational mission” in a decision authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Kennedy, however, was replaced by Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, and the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett gave conservatives who have been more critical of affirmative action policies a 6-3 majority on the court.
Justice Samuel Alito in a dissent to the 2016 ruling asserted that affirmative action policies no longer serve the purpose of “helping the disadvantaged.’
“Now we are told that a program that tends to admit poor and disadvantaged minority students is inadequate because it does not work to the advantage of those who are more fortunate,” he wrote. “This is affirmative action gone wild.”
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I guess having the “most qualified” doesn’t mean anything anymore, as long as it’s “diverse”. Why bother to have any tests or qualifications at all if they’re basing admissions on race? Why do they always assume that ALL minority students are “poor and disadvantaged”, who all need a hand-up, and ALL white students are born advantaged and wealthy? I’ve got news for them… I’m white and was NOT born nor brought up wealthy. I had to scratch and fight for everything in my life.
It’s perfectly OK to discriminate in this country, as long as it’s done to white people.
GUESS those companies don’t care about customers either…
EXACTLY!!
“It’s perfectly OK to discriminate in this country, as long as it’s done to white people.”
“Judge not by the color of one’s skin, but by the contents of their character”
Character???
I.A.W. U.S. Census & FBI (Table 43a)
Black males make up about 7% of the U.S. population but every year commit ~56% of all the murders and ~64% of all robberies in the U.S… Every year in the U.S. there are ~6,000 African-Americans men, women and children killed and 92% of them were killed by fellow African-Americans.
list of companies?
U. S. Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard and Space force.,,,,Thanks to Biden signing on. God help us.
I’d like to see the list, too. I could add it to my already long list of companies and products I’ll avoid like the Plague.
It’s getting to the point where there’s not much left.
Yea, its gotten to where, its easier to list out the companies you CAN STILL do business with!
I’ve been in business for 40 years and never seen diversity enhance business performance, but just the opposite when people of one color are passed over for raises and promotions just because a certain shade of skin color is not prevalent enough in management. In fact, it has served to divide American business and changed them form a meritocracy of performance into social collectives of equal distribution of the benefits with no equal distribution of the sweat equity. Or intelligence. The unequal opportunity of the government interference has made many an American industry more world non-competitive in the international business world of dog eat dog for company profits, as if a real world of “let’s all share the profits equally no matter who or what is contributed” ever really existed. Enter the rise of the Chinese business meritocracy and the fall of American democracy via divisive diversity. Let each persons contribution determine his rewards, not some social experimenter/decider who thinks his little clutch of social indoctrination can trump the rules of the entire real world of human competition, like when men can declare themselves woman swimmers and take home all the trophies for themselves or in this case all the good jobs.
Don’t these schools realize this act of stupidity just devalues and “dumbs down” the quality of an education at these “elite” universities. You can teach students about exceptionalism and honest scholarship at many community colleges without the fealty to the Leftist Agenda.
When did biologists ever prove that melanin content is a factor in intelligence? Diversity’s root is of course inside the word “divide”. Divide and Conquer is not just a hackneyed expression, it’s the standing orders of the Progressive Left. They are, and the corporations that endorse this quackery — racists.
Kissing a** because of color is nothing more than a giant political scam. Qualifications in anything should take precedence over criteria that are not based upon merit.
Those arguing for affirmative action (discrimination) suggest that a diverse student body or workforce cannot happen without selection by identity. A merit system does not prevent a diversity of those selected. Affirmative discrimination reverses centuries of progress away from feudalism with ascribed status instead of achieved status.