The affirmative action ruling has exposed Democrats’ failure on education

There’s a reason the Biden administration, congressional Democrats and so many of the media leftwing talking class were so upset about the decision in the affirmative action case against Harvard and the University of North Carolina. They’re even more upset that the Supreme Court decision is popular, with one poll showing 52 percent supporting it and only 32 percent opposed.

This has to do with their attempt to re-frame the very concept of “diversity” as something that cannot survive a merit-based college admissions system.

There is a not-so-subtle racist assumption in there — that Black students will fail if made to compete on an even playing field. But beyond that, the real question is why people might adopt such an assumption in the first place.

That’s the question Democrats don’t want asked, because they know the answer could cost them their next primary election.

The question people should be asking in places like my hometown of Detroit and my adopted city of Baltimore is why such a large racial achievement gap exists in schools. Yes, liberals claim that it’s just systemic racism. But think about it for a minute. Just who are they saying is the racist? Who is causing the racism in the system? 

Is it the unionized teachers in those cities? Is it the principals? The parents? The mayors, who have been all Democrats in both of those cities since the 1960s? Is it the nearly all-Democratic city council’s members? Is it something in the water?

This is where the circular reasoning that blames everything on systemic racism falls apart. 

The actual reason for the disparities in educational outcomes is, of course, a failed education system — a system that is significantly worse wherever Democrats have been in control for a very long time. Note that most of the cities with the worst educational outcomes — Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles — aren’t located in deep red states where Republicans can unilaterally impose their will from a state capitol. 

In fact, maybe that’s just the sort of firm hand that some of those cities could use. In 2012, Republicans took over Mississippi’s state legislature for the first time in 136 years. Ten years and a few new education reform laws later, Magnolia State students have rocketed upward from 49th to 21st place in reading proficiency. Teachers unions broadly oppose the reforms that Mississippi adopted, naturally.

Today, there are 22 schools in Baltimore where not a single student is proficient in math at grade level. The students in those 22 schools are, of course, overwhelmingly Black. 

The education system’s failure to prepare non-white students for college admissions on the merits is not just an accident of Democratic one-party rule. It is a feature of Democratic machine politics. The two major teachers unions — the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) — tell Democrats to jump; Democrats lack the spine to do anything but ask, “How high?”

Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, is a staple at Democratic campaign rallies. She played an immense role personally in keeping schools closed during COVID-19, using her outsized influence to undermine science-based decisions by President Joe Biden’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This act alone has cost Black students, particularly those in already-failing school districts, years of progress that they will likely never make up.

Open Secrets reports that teachers unions spent almost $60 million in hard and soft money on the 2020 election. Going back to 1990, these unions have given about 94 percent of that to help Democrats, but today the number is much closer to 100 percent. And that doesn’t even count the essential role the union staff and members play in getting out the Democratic vote and shaping the outcome of Democratic primaries. 

Do you really think Democratic officeholders are going to stand up to the constituency that comprises their party’s lifeblood by calling for accountability and pointing out its failures? Of course not. Instead, generations of children are being sacrificed to a system designed to avoid accountability.

Democratic officeholders would rather keep “separate, but equal” standards for college admissions than set higher standards for a constituent group they cannot afford to offend. 

If you really want to see more qualified Black students get into Harvard, the answer is not to engage in blatant discrimination and ugly stereotyping against Asian American students, as Harvard and UNC had been doing. It is to fix the big-city education systems that Democratic Party politics has broken.

Derek Hunter is host of the Derek Hunter Podcast and a former staffer for the late Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.).