As the Supreme Court considers two landmark cases that could end race-conscious admission practices, “diversity” has become an easy substitute for difficult conversations about the racial injustices that make affirmative action necessary, according to an antidiscrimination law expert who delivered the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture, held in Sage Chapel Feb. 13.
“Affirmative action may be in its final hours, but ‘diversity’ has come to define the national, and increasingly even the global, discussion of racial justice,” said Richard T. Ford, the George E. Osborne Professor of Law at Stanford University, whose lecture, “Derailed by Diversity: Racial Justice after Affirmative Action,” explored the future of racial justice and admissions in higher education, at a time when current race-conscious admissions practices are under fire.