BOOK REVIEW: Getting Under the Skin of Diversity: Searching for the Color-Blind Ideal

This book is the quintessential analysis of the egregious 2003 Supreme Court case Grutter versus Bollinger on the use of race in college admissions.

Larry Purdy’s book remains fresh and incisive pertaining the Harvard and UNC cases as the high court now considers yet again two challenges against the use of race as a factor in college admissions in the name of diversity.

In September 2022, once again the merit of using skin color as a factor in admissions was front and center. The author meticulously deconstructs the rationale used by the court in the Grutter case to prop up racist practice for assessing applicants for admission to the University of Michigan law school.

Purdy examines the Grutter case and critiques the illogic used by Justice O’Connor, the unfounded assumptions presented in her majority opinion, and the inexplicable ignoring of data used to reach a contorted decision in Grutter.

Justice O’Connor inexplicably used The Shape of the River by Derek Bok and William Bowen, two famous academics, to justify and prop up her opinion in Grutter.

Purdy examines the scholarship of The Shape of the River and finds it deeply flawed. Paragraph by paragraph, page by page Purdy shreds Bok and Bowen’s use unsupported facts and their ignoring data that they themselves report that refutes their conclusion in favor of race-based admissions.

In the concluding section Purdy presents a compelling case of the harm done to thousands over the years of the practice of using race as a major factor in admissions, elevating a completely non-merit factor, the color of one’s skin, to the decisive factor that admit applicants with fewer qualifications than others, eloquently describing the harm that those deserving individuals have had done to them in the name of the mystical and unexplained magic of diversity.

The compelling case set for by Purdy should be read by every single Justice and clerk on the high court today before the decision is made on Harvard and UNC in order that justice may finally be done.

Getting Under the Skin of “Diversity”: Searching for the Color-Blind Ideal