Obama and his cabinet just pick and choose which laws to use to justify race-based policies

Another Friday news dump to avoid sticky political problems. In the latest example, Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are again imposing race-based policies on America in a way that violates the spirit and the letter of the most recent Supreme Court case that dealt with affirmative-action college admission programs.

Jess Bravin writes in the Wall Street Journal:

The Obama administration issued new guidance Friday advising schools and colleges on how they can make race-based enrollment decisions to promote campus diversity, shortly before the Supreme Court is set to consider whether to re-examine a 2003 case holding that universities could sometimes use race in admissions decisions.

The departments withdrew prior guidance from the Bush administration, which officials said was too vague to assist school administrators seeking to promote diverse student enrollment. The new guidance parses the Supreme Court's most recent rulings on student diversity to suggest policies the administration believes would not violate the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection of the laws.

Like the former Bush administration guidance, the new documents advise schools to use race-neutral policies if possible. If those prove insufficient, however, the new guidance states that a school "may consider a student's race as a 'plus factor' (among other, nonracial considerations) to achieve its compelling interests" in diversity.

The documents pay little attention to the thrust of a widely noted 2007 plurality opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts in a 5-4 Supreme Court decision invalidating integration programs adopted by school boards in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle.

The chief justice took a highly skeptical view of race-conscious enrollment policies, even those intended for benign purposes such as promoting diversity. "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," he wrote.

The Justice Department relies more heavily on the court's 5-4 opinion in 2003 upholding the University of Michigan Law School's admissions formula, which considered an applicant's race in order to build a "critical mass" of minority students who could contribute to the educational experience...

"The Department of Justice appears to be stretching an outdated doctrine which only encourages school administrators to use racial classifications and preferences to achieve racial proportionality," said Edward Blum, director of the Project on Fair Representation, an advocacy group that sponsors lawsuits targeting race-conscious policies, including the pending Texas case. "Eventually, the law will forbid this never-ending abuse of equal protection," Mr. Blum said.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Barack Obama, the first black president of Harvard Law Review and constitutional law lecturer, surely know about the legal doctrine of stare decisis -- the principle that judges are obliged to respect the precedents established by prior decisions. This legal doctrine is the basis of our legal system. Generally, this means that newer decisions become the precedent go guide decisions and policies of our government.

One would expect that our nation's top law enforcers would show a similar fidelity to the doctrine. Instead, the Departments of Justice and Education are relying on an older decision to justify their policies. Recall Attorney General Holder complained that focus on his refusal to enforce the law regarding the Black Panther case was demeaning to "his people".

His people are supposed to be the American people not a subset of the American people. Holder also carries in his wallet a card on which is written: "a black man's race defines him more particularly than anything else." Holder explained its meaning:

I am not the tall U.S. Attorney, I am not the thin U.S. Attorney. I am the black U.S. Attorney ... There's a common cause that bonds the black U.S. Attorney with the black criminal or the black doctor with the black homeless person." All blacks share a "common cause."

And that cause seems to have impelled Holder to use the Justice Department to tilt what should be a level playing field into one that disproportionally favors African-Americans. He is betraying the principle of equal rights -- a fundamental principle enshrined in our Constitution.

We are living under a "racial spoils system" (see Obama's Racial Spoils System) that is geared towards redistributing power and wealth towards favored groups and away from disfavored groups. Of course, the major media outlets turn a blind eye towards this transformation.

We are dealing with an Attorney General and President who have zero problem with circumventing rules, laws, and traditions to further their agenda. They are choosing the laws to follow -- not Congress and certainly not the Supreme Court. Perhaps Barack Obama will show some deference to the Supreme Court when he is able to pick and choose the members that will do his bidding while he is in office and the decades after he leaves office.

Is it any wonder that his support among white Americans is falling while his support among African-Americans is rock solid? In his words, he believes in rewarding friends and punishing enemies. Maybe more people are catching on to what is going on behind the scenes.