Late in 2015, Scalia was still alive and he suggested in oral argument that affirmative action programs might place some African American students in too-demanding programs. “I don't like what he said,” Trump said when a reporter asked him about the comment. “No, I don't like what he said. I heard him, I was like, 'Let me read it again' because I actually saw it in print, and I'm going -- I read a lot of stuff -- and I'm going, 'Whoa!’” On Meet the Press, he said: “Well, you know, you have to also go free market. You have to go capability. You have to do a lot of things. But I'm fine with affirmative action. We've lived with it for a long time. And I lived with it for a long time. And I've had great relationships with lots of people. So I'm fine with it.”
On Tuesday, Charlie Savage reported at The New York Times:
The Trump administration is preparing to redirect resources of the Justice Department’s civil rights division toward investigating and suing universities over affirmative action admissions policies deemed to discriminate against white applicants, according to a document obtained by The New York Times.
The document, an internal announcement to the civil rights division, seeks current lawyers interested in working for a new project on “investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions.”
