Newspapers and magazines across the country reacted quickly with editorials and opinion columns about the Supreme Court’s rulings on affirmative action. As might be expected, the reviews were mixed. Here is a sampling:
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From an essay in The Michigan Daily by Earl Lewis, dean of the Rackham School of Graduate Studies at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor:
Creating access and opportunity is one thing; creating a diverse society is something else. Our task will be incomplete until we tackle the latter and answer a paraphrased version of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s probing question: “When will practices such as affirmative action no longer be necessary?” The answer is not today but perhaps in several tomorrows. As the University of Michigan, our responsibility is to lead the way.
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From George F. Will’s column in The Washington Post:
The court also ruled 5 to 4 that the law school’s more nuanced, less mechanical weighting of race passes constitutional muster because it, unlike the undergraduate point system, provides “a meaningful individualized review of applicants.” Those six words of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor are pregnant with burdensome future litigation.
But America’s fast-unfolding future will outrun the capacity of litigation to stay pertinent. What are called “race-conscious” remedies for social problems are going to seem increasingly problematic because race and ethnicity are increasingly understood to be not fixed but extremely fluid, hence dubious, scientific categories.
African Americans include descendants of African slaves, recent voluntary immigrants from Africa -- and from the Caribbean. The single category “Hispanic” sweeps together such very different groups as Cuban Americans, Dominican Americans, Guatemalan Americans, Salvadoran Americans, Mexican Americans. And immigrants from Argentina -- but not from Brazil.
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From The New York Times:
It is important to appreciate how close yesterday’s key ruling was. Justice O’Connor is rumored to be considering resigning this summer. If the Bush administration replaced her with a hard-line conservative, there would likely be five votes to all but end affirmative action. Supporters of equal opportunity should savor yesterday’s victory. But they should prepare for the coming battle.
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From an essay on Salon.com by Joan Walsh, editor of Salon News:
By striking down Michigan’s point system, but upholding its much more opaque and subjective law-school admissions process, which uses race as a “plus” factor but won’t spell out how much, the court sent a confusing and disturbing message: You can continue to use race in admissions, but only if you don’t tell the public exactly how you’re using it.…
There’s a corrosive effect to all the evasion and dissembling that’s required to minimize the role of race in admissions decisions. So I say let’s either do it right, and honestly, or not do it at all.…
We’re not being honest with ourselves, collectively, when it comes to what we really think about race. n
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From an essay in The Progressive by its editor, Matthew Rothschild:
So for the time being, affirmative action lives on. This decision should help the country withstand the racial assaults from the right, and it should foster a richer, more tolerant society not only in universities, but in the work world as well.
Doors remain shut to minorities in this country because of racism. Sandra Day O’Connor has preserved one key to unlocking some of those doors.
Hers was a judicious decision.
http://chronicle.com Section: Special Report Volume 49, Issue 43, Page S9
