The ACLU is not the organization it once was. There was a time that the ACLU would defend the right of Nazi's to march down a Jewish neighboorhood. Not because

The ACLU is not the organization it once was. There was a time that the ACLU would defend the right of Nazi's to march down a Jewish neighboorhood. Not because they thought that particular lawsuit would help anyone other than the Nazi's; but because they recognized the importance of establishing a legal precedent so it would be there when the "good guys" were under attack[0]. Under this old philosophy, even if the aim of the lawsuit were specifically to help whites, it should still be supported. By supporting Harvard in this case, you are weakening the legal precedent against racism, and strengthening the legal precedent for it. Once this precedent is established, it can be used to argue for racism against Jews (it already bears an eerie resemblance to earlier anti-semetic attempts), or gays, or liberals, or redheads. Sure, this one case won't overturn all our legal protections overnight. But those legal protections did not spring into existence overnight. They grew up through a long sequence of court cases [1] that gradually established our rights. Those cases can be overturned in the same way, and this case is 1 step on that ladder. [0] The ACLU also recognized the practical importance of sympathetic cases, and so would often make a strategic choice to pursue the most favorable ones, but that is a separate discussion. [1] And legislation, and shifts in public opinion. But we are talking about a court case, so I am focusing on that aspect of the history.