Polling and Politics

Today I saw an AP story that claimed that "most Americans" favor using race in college admissions. That was surprising to me, because for years now the polling has shown the opposite: strong majorities have suggested that college admissions should not consider race at all. For example, here's a Reuters/Ipsos poll from February with 62% rejecting any use of race or ethnicity; here's a Washington Post poll from October 2022 showing approximately the same numbers (63% of all US adults, but sixty+ percent among all categories of US adults except black Americans who were the only ones who majority-favor race-factoring in admissions); here's a Pew poll from early 2019 showing very strong majorities in opposition to race-based admissions. The Post poll even asked a similar question to the AP poll: should the Supreme Court ban such usage of race in admissions?

It turns out that the AP poll was structured to give people opportunities to suggest that race could be considered 'but not in a major' or 'not in an important' way. 68% even in the AP poll oppose race being a 'major' factor. In other words, the polling really hasn't changed; the poll was just structured to give people an opportunity to hedge, which people generally love to do. (Practically, though, any approved usage will just be the excuse for colleges to continue doing whatever they want; and that might be fine for private schools, but public colleges ought not to discriminate based on race.)

Now that the Supreme Court is likely to issue a ruling on the subject, I suppose it is time for the push-polling even from once-reliable outlets like the Associated Press. There is a strong push to delegitimize the Supreme Court, which must always be shown to be unpopular and therefore anti-democratic (as, indeed, the Founders intended the Supreme Court to be: they were intended to be the aristocratic rule-by-the-chosen-few branch, just as the executive is the rule-by-one branch that Aristotle called Monarchy if it works well and Tyranny if it does not, and as the Congress is supposed to be the rule-by-many branch).

Disappointing, but not surprising.