A Republican senator has issued a warning to nearly a dozen colleges that expressed hostility to the recent Supreme Court ruling that said race-based admissions standards violated federal statutes and the Constitution.
Sen. J.D Vance of Ohio is demanding that ten colleges and universities preserve their communications after their “expressed open hostility” to the ruling, according to Fox News.
The case specifically revolved around Harvard University’s admission policies, which were found to disproportionately affect Asian students. However, the court clarified that schools can still consider race as a factor if applicants explicitly discuss how their racial background has influenced their life experiences.
After the ruling, numerous college presidents, including those from all Ivy League universities, made public declarations about their institutions’ dedication to fostering “diversity” on their campuses.
“I write to express concern about your institutions’ openly defiant and potentially unlawful reaction to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, which reaffirmed the bedrock constitutional principle of equality under the law and therefore forbade invidious race-based preferences in college admissions,” Vance wrote in the letters sent to college presidents.
“As you know, the Court has instructed you to honor the spirit, and not just the letter, of the ruling,” he noted further. “Going forward, the Court explained, ‘universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today.’”
The GOP senator added that “within hours of the decision’s pronouncement,” the presidents and their “institutions expressed open hostility to the decision and seemed to announce an intention to circumvent it.”
“Statements along these lines are particularly disconcerting in light of recent revelations that proponents of unlawful affirmative action sometimes practice ‘unstated affirmative action,’ in which hiring and admissions decisions are made on the basis of race in a covert and unspoken way, even when the relevant decisionmaker is placed under oath in a deposition,” Vance wrote.
He went on to include statements from each of the schools’ presidents following the ruling.
“Princeton President [Christopher] Eisgruber complained that the Court’s decision was ‘unwelcome and disappointing’ and vowed to pursue ‘diversity . . . with energy, persistence, and a determination to succeed despite the restrictions imposed by the Supreme Court in its regrettable decision today,’” Vance wrote.
“Harvard President [Lawrence] Bacow boasted that ‘[f]or almost a decade, Harvard has vigorously defended an admissions system’ that the Supreme Court ruled unlawful and then ‘reaffirm[ed] the fundamental principle that deep and transformative teaching, learning, and research depend upon a community comprising people of many backgrounds, perspectives and lived experiences,'” he added.
Vance said the Senate “is prepared to use its full investigative powers to uncover circumvention, covert or otherwise, of the Supreme Court’s ruling” on affirmative action and advised the school presidents “to retain admissions documents in anticipation of future congressional investigations, including digital communications between admissions officers, any demographic or other data compiled during future admissions cycles, and other relevant materials.”
“As you are aware, a number of federal criminal statutes regulate the destruction of records connected to federal investigations, some of which apply prior to the formal commencement of any inquiry,” he wrote.
