The NYT Daily just ran an interesting set of profiles related to AA. One was on Justice Thomas, which I listened while practicing compassion. I came away with the understanding that Thomas very possibly got into Yale Law thanks to AA, and he blamed the racism he felt at Yale on AA rather than on the racists, who would have treated him the same way with or without AA (cf. the sexism RBG faced at Harvard). He continued to blame AA for his failure to get a job straight out of law school after his mediocre performance at Yale (again cf. Ginsburg who didn't get any decent offers out of Columbia after finishing 1st, recognizing the problem as sexism rather than on any perception that she had been accepted to law school in the first place due to her sex). When he did get his first job with John Danforth, whom he had met at Yale, he probably reasoned he got the job because he deserved it rather than consider the possibility it was due to his Yale privilege. From the perspective of neuroscience, he isn't physiologically capable of supporting AA because it would confirm his own psychological fear that he didn't get to where he is out of merit but rather due to his race. Truth is, he is probably on the SCOTUS because of his race. Despite Bush's claims to the contrary, had a white justice resigned rather than Marshal, there's no way Bush would have picked him. And had Marshall refused to resign in 1991, Clinton would have chosen his replacement after his death in 1993, and any dreams Thomas had of making SCOTUS would have died with Marshall.
To summarize what this means for your question, "What does it mean to call the Constitution 'color-blind?'" it means that the justices who call it color-blind wish it so because in their lived experiences they deduct color from their own personal success. It's all about the meaning they give to the words of the Constitution, not about what the Constitution actually says.
If you have admissions officers sending emails, "haa-- we'll just use SES instead of race!" they might lose a court case, but what UC Davis is doing seems like just what we need and very likely to withstand any legal challenges. What I found disappointing about this was the number of NYT commenters along the lines of "I don't want one of those inferior doctors working on me" totally missing out on the fact that they are just as likely to be a great doctor, but look less impressive initially on paper because of the adversity. I think, if thoughtfully implemented, this adversity approach achieves many of the same goals and can actually be more fair, i.e., different from so many Harvard "Black" students being wealthy children of recent African immigrants. I do think there should be a real focus on helping the descendants of American slaves, but, though intrinsically race-based, it's about the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, not just skin color.
The UC Davis approach does seem very promising and I hope you're right about it withstanding challenges. And yes, I agree about what the focus of race-based AA should be.
The NYT Daily just ran an interesting set of profiles related to AA. One was on Justice Thomas, which I listened while practicing compassion. I came away with the understanding that Thomas very possibly got into Yale Law thanks to AA, and he blamed the racism he felt at Yale on AA rather than on the racists, who would have treated him the same way with or without AA (cf. the sexism RBG faced at Harvard). He continued to blame AA for his failure to get a job straight out of law school after his mediocre performance at Yale (again cf. Ginsburg who didn't get any decent offers out of Columbia after finishing 1st, recognizing the problem as sexism rather than on any perception that she had been accepted to law school in the first place due to her sex). When he did get his first job with John Danforth, whom he had met at Yale, he probably reasoned he got the job because he deserved it rather than consider the possibility it was due to his Yale privilege. From the perspective of neuroscience, he isn't physiologically capable of supporting AA because it would confirm his own psychological fear that he didn't get to where he is out of merit but rather due to his race. Truth is, he is probably on the SCOTUS because of his race. Despite Bush's claims to the contrary, had a white justice resigned rather than Marshal, there's no way Bush would have picked him. And had Marshall refused to resign in 1991, Clinton would have chosen his replacement after his death in 1993, and any dreams Thomas had of making SCOTUS would have died with Marshall.
To summarize what this means for your question, "What does it mean to call the Constitution 'color-blind?'" it means that the justices who call it color-blind wish it so because in their lived experiences they deduct color from their own personal success. It's all about the meaning they give to the words of the Constitution, not about what the Constitution actually says.
If you have admissions officers sending emails, "haa-- we'll just use SES instead of race!" they might lose a court case, but what UC Davis is doing seems like just what we need and very likely to withstand any legal challenges. What I found disappointing about this was the number of NYT commenters along the lines of "I don't want one of those inferior doctors working on me" totally missing out on the fact that they are just as likely to be a great doctor, but look less impressive initially on paper because of the adversity. I think, if thoughtfully implemented, this adversity approach achieves many of the same goals and can actually be more fair, i.e., different from so many Harvard "Black" students being wealthy children of recent African immigrants. I do think there should be a real focus on helping the descendants of American slaves, but, though intrinsically race-based, it's about the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, not just skin color.
The UC Davis approach does seem very promising and I hope you're right about it withstanding challenges. And yes, I agree about what the focus of race-based AA should be.