The New York Times reviews here yesterday’s announcement by the U.S. Supreme Court that it will again review the effort by the University of Texas to make some use of race in university admission decisions.

The thrust of the article is that this could signal the coming end of affirmative action, many years before it was anticipated in a 2003 decision that preserved a measure of so-called affirmative action in decisions.

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In Texas, some diversity is assured by seats set aside for a certain percentage of the top  students from each Texas high school. But the policy in Texas, so far upheld by lower courts, also allows race to be among many considerations in  a “holistic” admissions policy.

Should that be knocked down, the article foresees a day when white and Asian students shoulder aside other minorities in the college admissions race.

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Theorettically, Arkansas colleges don’t consider race in admissions. But they work mightily toward diversity at the flagship University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville. New scholarship programs that target overwhelmingly black schools and geographic areas contribute to that effort. You have to wonder if some sorehead denied admission might argue that such strategies amount to affirmative action.

From the Times:

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“Over the last few days, liberals have been celebrating a string of important victories involving health care and same-sex marriage,” said Justin Driver, a law professor at the University of Chicago. “But liberals have also been bracing themselves for the other shoe to drop. This decision to grant review means, at a minimum, that the other shoe will remain suspended in midair for the next several months.”

A decision to open the doors to more white students at Texas and fewer minority students might, it seems to me, have an Arkansas impact. It could keep at home more of the big number of Texans seeking admission and cut-rate tuition at Fayetteville.