Learning with and from people of different backgrounds allows students to understand a wide range of perspectives, a skill essential for democratic citizenship. And studying in diverse settings prepares our young people to lead our businesses, our military and our government in an increasingly globalized world.

Affirmative action is not just sound public policy, however. It’s also the law of the land, and the judiciary has left no doubt what the law is. In four decades, the Supreme Court has validated affirmative action three times. Just last year, in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the court reaffirmed that “a university may institute a race-conscious admissions program as a means of obtaining the educational benefits that flow from student body diversity.” (In Fisher, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund played a key role litigating on behalf of the University of Texas’ Black Student Alliance and its African-American alumni.)

All of this appears to mean very little to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who appears determined to use the Justice Department to undermine the ideal of equal justice he is sworn to uphold. As is the case with other actions this department has taken, its goal on affirmative action appears to be the systematic marginalization of Americans of color. In fact, the only place the Trump administration seems to welcome minority representation is in prisons. The administration has consistently moved to make our courts, our voting rolls and now our classrooms more reflective of its own identity rather than the diversity of this nation.

It is frustrating that the battle to protect affirmative action eats resources and time needed for other, urgent racial justice demands. But the relentless fixation on affirmative action by those who wish to return us to a time of racial exclusion tells us that what is really at stake is the transformation of our country. We must resist every effort by the Trump administration to compel American institutions to conform to its failed vision of our country.