Supreme Court Tolls Death Knell for Affirmative Action

From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial back in 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." It became the dream of every proud American too, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 soon followed. The nation breathed a collective sigh of relief, trusting that the injustices of the past would soon fade away, and a better, stronger nation would emerge.

Our hopes were dashed when President Lyndon Johnson decided to reinterpret Title VII of that Civil Rights Act. Though it specifically stated that none of its provisions should be interpreted as requiring "preferential treatment" for any individual or group because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin (though obliquely did suggest that some form of "affirmative action" should be encouraged), Johnson decided to codify affirmative action remedies by issuing Executive Order #11246, which made it clear that set-asides, quotas and preferential treatment based on race should be used in order to accomplish his vision of "The Great Society."

In his Letter from the Birmingham Jail in 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Why it wasn’t patently obvious that Johnson’s order to institutionalize racial preference was just such an injustice, whatever the well-intended reason, is hard to understand. Perhaps it was the guilt many thoughtful Americans felt for those past injustices that made us accept it, believing that at some, undefined point in the future, these measures would no longer be necessary. The problem is, once a group enjoys privileges for any reason, they are not going to willingly give them up.

There are no doubt many who will label these views as racist, and will point out the ongoing racial problems that exist in this country. I submit that the reason there are still racial problems in this country is because we are required by law to practice racial discrimination. The fact is, the last two generations have grown up restrained by institutionalized racism. Those given preferential treatment based on race learned from affirmative action that they are recognized by government as "inferior", incapable of succeeding without the "leg up" the law provided. Those on the other end learned that the law created unfairness, that no matter how hard they tried, someone could pass them merely because of their "preferred" race.

As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion of this landmark case from Seattle and Louisville schools systems this week, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." It doesn’t get any plainer than that. We can only hope that this common sense attitude will spread across every walk of life, not just in school systems, and that soon, we will all be able to be "free at last" from the enslaving bonds of affirmative action.