Daily Archives: 2 November 2022

Racial Discrimination and College Admission

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Racial discrimination—racism—is enthusiastically practiced in a broad number of American colleges and universities, including in particular Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, whose racial discrimination in admission has been hauled before the Supreme Court.

Edward Blum, Founder and President of Students for Fair Admissions, made a sound argument against those two schools’ racism in admissions in his Sunday Wall Street Journal op-ed.

The common element in each lawsuit is the claim that both schools racially gerrymander their freshman classes by illegally raising the bar for certain racial and ethnic groups and lowering the bar for others.

I say the matter is broader than that, though. Racial discrimination everywhere and always is an immoral discrimination. The immorality doesn’t make it illegal, but it should inform Americans considering whether two support these two institutions in any form. It’s also wholly illegal under the 14th Amendment of our Constitution, which states in pertinent part

…nor shall any State…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

UNC is a public institution, and so is plainly bound by our Constitution. Harvard is a private institution, but stands in blatant violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It’s also plainly a public accommodation within the spirit of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and so still cannot discriminate on the basis of race.

A Couple Questions

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Renault and Nissan are trying to reduce Renault’s participation in Nissan from its current 43% ownership to 15%—or at least Nissan is. The French government owns 15% of Renault. There are a number of impediments to the partial divestiture, including the divvying up of intellectual property that might have been developed jointly. One of the deals that would be made from the divestiture, though, involves Nissan investment in another arm of Renault (which raises the question in my peabrain about what Nissan would be getting, really, from Renault’s reduction in direct ownership of Nissan, but that’s for another time):

In exchange, Nissan would invest in Renault’s new electric-vehicle business, which the French auto maker aims to take public next year, the people said.

One question I have is this: why would any company want to partner with a government-run company, whether it’s a PRC government-run company or a French government-run (which even that 15% stake gives the government functional control) company?

Another question I have goes back to that divvying of intellectual property:

Nissan also doesn’t want technology that it developed with Renault to be shared with Chinese automotive giant Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co, which is planning to take a stake in Renault’s gasoline-car business, the people said.

Why would the French government want to partner with the PRC government to produce what the French government represents to be a French car? That Zhejian Geely stake would give the PRC government access to both French and Nissan intellectual property and technology.