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Notes -
The President has much more free hand there than a rank-and-file bureaucrat. It'd be very hard to sue the President for not nominating me to Supreme Court because I am a white male. It's a very exclusive unique position, and it'd be almost impossible to argue - even if I were an accomplished law scholar, which of course I'm not - that I deserve that particular position, and while the racism here is indeed brazen, formulating a legal policy that would prevent it while not unduly constraining the President's choices would be very non-trivial. On the other hand, university admission or hiring practices or any other governmental action applied en masse is easier to regulate, since it requires some rules, procedures, official criteria, etc. It won't be sustainable if Harvard president had to personally decide on each case. There would be institutional procedures. That's where you can look for discriminatory policies. Of course, it's possible to hide them, and I am sure Harvard will try their best to do just that, but at least they couldn't do it in the open anymore. It's not the victory over racism, but it's a step in denormalizing it, with is a necessary precondition to victory.
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