> The Supreme Court can I guess try to go case-by-case banning metrics. This stupid whack-a-mole game will look pathetic on their part and burn up whatever tiny bit of institutional legitimacy they have left, but at least they’ll probably fail.
Conservatives aren't stupid enough to think they can and should solve all problems via judicial fiat, which is about as divisive, autocratic, and undemocratic as it gets. But, conservatives also know that there's been decades of terrible jurisprudence to undo, many of it done by activist judges. In particular, yesterday's ruling on affirmative action undid California Board of Regents Versus Bakki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regents_of_the_University_of_C...).
While the ruling actually declared that racial quotas violated the equal protection clause of the constitution, it simultaneously opened a massive back door to enable effective racial quotas in the name of "diversity". All universities had to do was prove a "compelling interest" in having diversity and they could continue factoring race into the admissions process. This ruling, among other things, inspired the "critical mass" argument, stating that to get the diversity benefit you have to have enough of each racial group: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/151579503.pdf
What's the difference between requiring a critical mass and having racial quotes? Well, not much in practice! In another bit of terrible jurisprudence, the court upheld the critical mass argument as late as 2015: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/14-981
Unfortunately, our courts have made a lot of bad rulings in the past, and it's far past time they got undone or reworked.