Finally, some sense

The US Supreme Court has finally ruled that affirmative action programs, based on race, for university admissions are unlawful:

The ruling was of against the Harvard and the University of North Carolina.  Naturally, the reaction was the predictable hysteria among those who will now have to meet academic and other standards for admission.  Race will no longer cut it:

When I was in the federal public service, affirmative action (AA) was introduced to enable more Francophones, women and minorities to be put into senior positions.  I worked for the Public Service Commission at the time, whose supreme objective was the application of the sacred Merit Principle in all hiring practices.  Remember?  

That went out the window with AA, as preference and competitive points were given to people from the above-categories.  I wrote a memo to the chairman, stating that we had to take the position that the Merit Principle had been suspended in favour of AA.  Well, all Hell broke loose in Bedlam, a.k.a. his office, on the 18th floor!

The chairman -- who happened to be a Francophone, by the way -- doubled down and insisted that the Merit Principle would still be rigorously applied via AA.

Huh??!!  How??!!

He never could answer that question, so we muddled along lying to ourselves and everyone else about how we did business.  Wanting the best candidates for jobs on offer, managers naturally found ways of getting around this bureaucratic stranglehold, rendering the whole thing a complete charade.  It was 'The Emperor's New Clothes' all over again, as supremely under-qualified people were plunked into managers' chairs hither, thither and yon all over the service.

Did it piss people off?  Did it create chaos and bad decision making?  Of course, but AA ruled and continues to this day.  You only have to look at Brenda Lucki and Anne Kelly to see just a few of the disastrous results.

As for the US, admissions offices still have a number of ways to skirt this latest ruling.  The decision eliminates AA based on race, but leaves in place AA based on legacy, donors and athletes.  So, even though Harvard has won neither a national football championship in more that a century, nor a hockey in more than 30, it can still recruit athletes, as do dozens of universities considered powerhouses.

With collegiate athletics a US$20 billion industry, let's see how they wiggle around this one.