Fisher Disher

Image from Slate's Scalia Insult Generator.

I've been all over the place on Justice Scalia's remarks at the oral arguments for Fisher vs. University of Texas–Austin, the complaint against the UT quasi–affirmative action admissions policy of letting in anybody in the top 10% of their high school classes, which discriminate against young Abigail Fisher because, she thought, she wasn't in the top 10% in her high school, but probably if she was in one of those MINORITY schools she would have been since they're all so dumb and she's smart enough to have made it through LSU*, so what's going on, where Scalia explained:

there were people who would contend that "it does not benefit African-Americans to -- to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a less -- a slower-track school where they do well." He argued that "most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas. They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they're -- that they're being pushed ahead in -- in classes that are too -- too fast for them," Scalia said.

Pity the poor African Americans led by an uncaring society to believe they ought to attend a school with smart people in it! And occupying a seat that might have been occupied by Abigail Fisher, whose whole family went to Austin, proving that she's the right sort, even though her grades were maybe not that great.

*In the 2015 Shanghai rankings UT-Austin is at 27th in the US, and LSU at the tie for 79th to 102nd. Just saying.

But the thing that really got to me was that Scalia had a proper pseudo-scientific source for his retrograde opinions, as I found myself noting at the Frogpond: