After Grutter: Sandra Day O'Connor, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Diversity in Higher Education

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 32
  In Roundtable Session: Philosophical Approaches to Understanding Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice in Education

Abstract

We argue that Alasdair MacIntyre’s description of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor as an exemplar of practical reasoning, who envisioned the contextual and consensual balancing of different goods according to the further good of the American social order, enables a reinterpretation of O’Connor’s majority opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger. O’Connor’s decision, which allowed for affirmative action in higher education, has been criticized for arbitrarily claiming that diversity is a compelling governmental interest, giving excessive deference to admissions offices, and including a sunset provision. These criticisms, we argue, are weakened if the decision and the meaning of “diversity” are reinterpreted in neoAristotelian categories. Further, looking at Grutter, we defend O’Connor from MacIntyre’s criticism that she cannot radically critique the American social order.

Authors

• Neil Dhingra, University of Maryland

• Campbell Scribner, University of Maryland - College Park