Christopher Rufo will admit that systemic racism existed in the United States for centuries. He will also concede that it is reasonable to assume that some of the effects of that condition still linger to this day. He is adamant, however, that civil rights legislation must be applied in a completely colorblind way, and he notes that some of his allies even want to repeal the Civil Rights Act. Why?
As far as I can tell, there are only three possible arguments supporting the Rufo position. The first one, to deny that slavery and segregation had any lingering negative impacts on black people, is ludicrous; Rufo clearly doesn’t embrace it. The second one is that applying civil rights legislation specifically to assist black people, while historically understandable, was unacceptable even in the 1960s because it infringed on the liberties of innocent white people. The third is that, while affirmative action might have been appropriate as a temporary measure in the 1960s and 1970s, its day has passed. That appears to be the primary rationale used by the Supreme Court, albeit without much legal justification.
Does Rufo support #2 or #3? I couldn’t really tell from the Douthat interview.