How Far will Justice Kennedy Go?
Fisher II Oral Arguments
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Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute writes:
Coming out of oral argument in Fisher v. UT-Austin, I have a frustrating sense of déjà vu all over again. Not simply because this is the second iteration of Abigail Fisher’s plea not to be judged by skin color, but because every time the Supreme Court takes up affirmative action both sides talk past each other and the issue is (not) resolved by a mushy baby-splitter like Justices Lewis Powell or Sandra O’Connor. Regardless of what the particular legal issues may be, one side pushes racial preferences forever (for whatever reason, currently “diversity”) and the other says never (because the way to stop racial discrimination is to stop discriminating on race). The ultimate ruling inevitably rejects the specific use of race at issue but keeps the door open for future uses – chasing some Goldilocks ideal of “race consciousness” but not too much.
Read the full article.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.