Judgment Is Not the Enemy—Nonsense Is
I think drawing distinctions between human beings based on the color of their skin may be among the stupidest things humans routinely do. And let me be clear: I’m not against making distinctions. On the contrary—judgment is one of the best things we do.
I like this person better because they’re kind to me. That one’s a great dancer—I want to be his friend. She’s pretty. He’s handsome. I think they’d make a great couple. She’s smarter—I’ll hire her. This job is dangerous and requires above-average strength—I’ll look for a young man.
These aren’t problems. They’re part of being alive. Judgment is not the enemy—nonsense is. And ranking people by skin color is nonsense.
And yet, this is what Harvard, the University of North Carolina, and a host of other elite institutions insist they must do in order to fulfill their academic mission. In 2023 the Supreme Court put an end to any consideration of race in university admissions. The new Trump Administration has pressed ahead on enforcing this ban.
On May 9 of this year, the Defense Department, under Pete Hegseth, ordered the service academies to cease considering race in their admissions process. Pam Bondi’s Justice Department launched an investigation this past March into Stanford University (a private institution) and the University of California to ensure compliance with the Court’s ruling.
And the Supreme Court is once again wading into the fray in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, a case alleging reverse discrimination.
When Elite Discrimination Is “Virtuous”
Forgive me, but is this a legitimate role for government? Is the attempt to police private thoughts and decisions a place where government belongs? I don’t think so. We can’t force virtue, and we should stop pretending we can.
I think that when the leadership of Harvard University decides that 15% of its students should be Black—and that the number of Asians and Jews ought to decline as a result—they’re not running a university. They’re running a storefront eugenics clinic with delusions of grandeur.
But I may be wrong. God knows I often am.
I’ve never run an elite university, although I have been on UNC’s campus—most recently to see them get their asses kicked by the NC State Wolfpack. It was glorious.
Harvard is the oldest university in the United States, founded almost four hundred years ago, in 1636. Through wars, boom times and busts, social upheavals, waves of immigration and backlash, scientific and technological revolutions, Harvard has maintained its status—mostly unchallenged—as the premier institution of higher learning in the world.
Can we at least agree, on that basis alone, that they might know what they’re doing? More than any other credential, admission to Harvard is a guarantor of success in the 21st century, just as it was in the 20th, 19th, 18th, and 17th. Maybe—just maybe—good public policy would include leaving them alone?
Choosing a student body based on skin color seems idiotic. Harvard might as well pick students based on the length of their index fingers—and you can bet some tenure-hungry assistant professor, neck-deep in and fall-down drunk on postcolonial jargon, would write a 400-page, peer-reviewed treatise describing the practice as “a progressive reimagining of phalangeal equity.”
Race as Proxy, Not Principle
But maybe that’s wrong too. Could it be that race has a role to play in institutional leadership?
If I run a business that designs, manufactures, and markets farm implements, and I want to open an office in Zambia—which is in one of the most fertile regions on earth—who should I choose to lead that branch?
Zambia is 99% Black. If success in Zambia is my objective, I probably need to appoint a Black man to that job.
In Zambia, hiring a Black executive isn’t about race—it’s about knowing the market, the culture, the language, the rhythms of the place. What to order for lunch. Skin color may track with those things, but it isn’t the cause. Race is a proxy, not a principle.
Could the same thing be true in the academy? Maybe race is a proxy for something else—cultural experience, perspective, resilience. Fine. Make that case honestly. Just don’t pretend it’s not discrimination. Don’t pretend it’s virtuous when Harvard does it and vicious when The Griddle House Diner in Philadelphia, Mississippi does the exact same thing.
That’s the double game. That’s the lie.
We all discriminate. We like who we like. We hire who we trust. We gravitate toward people who make us feel comfortable, or safe, or seen. Sometimes that’s rational. Sometimes it’s just prejudice with better lighting. Sometimes it’s naked bigotry. But it’s human—and it’s everywhere.
What we can’t do—what we shouldn’t do—is invent moral alibis for the powerful while condemning the weak. If race-based discrimination is wrong, it’s wrong in the Ivy League and in the Delta. And if it’s not wrong in Cambridge, then maybe we should stop pretending it’s unforgivable in Mississippi.
What We Can Do Instead
So what do we do instead?
Let’s get the government out of the business of policing private thoughts and personal choices—even in public universities. We stop using federal law as a blunt instrument to impose virtue from above. If Harvard wants to discriminate, let it. If the owner of The Griddle House wants to do the same, let her.
And then let the rest of us say: That’s wrong. That’s idiotic. That’s beneath you. And most powerfully: I will take my business elsewhere.
Because we don’t need federal agents to fix bad judgment. Have you seen their judgment?
And we have better tools—tools that actually work. Condemnation. Moral persuasion. Market pressure. Social shame. Honor. Conscience.
Real power doesn’t come from Washington. It comes from people who refuse to stay silent in the face of nonsense—and who don’t need a law to tell them what’s right.
Goldwater’s Warning, Reconsidered
This isn’t a new debate. In 1964, Barry Goldwater—who had integrated the Arizona National Guard and desegregated his own department stores—voted against the Civil Rights Act. Not because he condoned racism, but because he didn’t believe the federal government had the authority—or ability—to police private choices, even offensive ones.
He was labeled a racist for that vote, and his wing of the Republican Party was steamrolled in that election. But sixty years later, I continue to wonder if he was right. Maybe progress—real progress—doesn’t come from legislation. Maybe it comes from social persuasion, economic pressure, cultural evolution—from letting people be wrong, and live with the consequences.
After all, we did elect a Black president. And a Black vice president. We did change. Not because the federal government forced virtue down our throats, but because most people, given time and space, eventually choose decency over idiocy.
Maybe what Goldwater feared wasn’t equality. Maybe he just feared hypocrisy.
And maybe he understood, better than most, that the surest way to keep a society divided… is to call the same act justice when done by the powerful, and sin when done by everyone else.
