There is a recurrent theme in American history: the clawing back of hard-won progress.
And the Supreme Court last week used the most specious of arguments to do so with affirmative action.
In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that affirmative action — in this case, the use of race as a factor in university admissions — cannot stand because “eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” But, of course, neither the court nor America itself has any desire to eliminate all of it.
What the court was really signaling was that it intended to let racial imbalances born of both historical and current injustices be locked in and go unchecked.
Affirmative action, however imperfect, is at least an acknowledgment of racialized imbalance and injury, and an attempt to lessen their effects.
Persons:
John Roberts
Locations:
America