In United Steelworkers of America v. Weber (1979), the U. S. Supreme Court engaged in one of the most blatant examples of judicial policymaking to date. This paper explores Weber (and, to a lesser degree, the other major cases that have addressed the question of ameliorative racial preference), and argues that the very attributes of the adjudicative process that make the courts so well‐suited for the resolution of particular controversies and grievances also render them most ill‐suited for general policy‐m