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Comment by mcherm | Hacker News Reader

> You can join any private club you want with any composition of well-rounded people. What does that have to with higher education?

I believe that a key component of an effective education is studying the roots of philosophy. Surely you agree that the State should not prevent me from forming a private university that mandates freshmen take a philosophy class.

I also believe that a key component to an effective education is exposure to peers who come from a wide variety of different backgrounds and life experiences. Surely you agree that the State should not prevent me from forming a private university that considers the creation of a diverse student body as one minor factor in admissions.

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Realistically, formal higher education is not simply a private matter. It's a part of the complex web of accreditation, government subsidies and entrenched social institutions (not necessarily state institutions).

A university is a public accommodation. You can certainly create a book club among your friends and forbid people of the opposite gender to join or require everyone to be of a different gender, maybe you can even call it a university; but that wouldn't be the same as doing such thing on the level of a large educational facility that e.g. provides the degree of Juris Doctor that allows you to take a bar exam.

So to answer your question, "Surely you agree that the State should not...", I would say "it depends on the particulars".

Private universities aren't. They get loads of research funding, tax breaks, people paying for their education with government backed loans. All American universities are to some extent public.

"Surely you agree that the State should not prevent me from forming a private university that considers the creation of a diverse student body as one minor factor in admissions."

The SCOTUS decision on affirmative action in college admissions has at least restricted race from that consideration.

Looking at demographics we were beginning to approach a point were affirmative action would have helped out white communities.

The decline and fall of white power America. If only MLK had lived to see it.

That's not at all what the SCOTUS case focused on.

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