Question:
When the Supreme Court offers a decision and both sides claim a victory, you know it was a bad one. The recent decision regarding affirmative action falls in that category. While that was a valid policy 40 years ago, it is no longer useful, nor needed. Fighting discrimination with discrimination may have been a short time solution, now it has become a long term one and is corrosive.
If a colorblind society is the goal, the Supremes only delayed what will be needed to arrive there. The matter today has more to do with economic class than race per se. The real problem has to do with the inequalities in priM education and that has to do with political decisions, not judicial ones.
If the court had emphatically stated that race should not be a consideration, we could have moved on to the real remedies. Now they have provided cover for what should have been declared illegal, if race, creed and national origin should be neutral in our society.
But I still reject the dissent from Justice Thomas, who clearly would not have been a member of the court if it had not been for his race. With his credentials and being white, he would not even had been considered for a federal judgeship.
Both Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice support affirmative action and it is understandable, since both admit having benefited from it. But at this stage, it is their talents that have prevailed.
The reaction to this decision by George W. Bush is hypocritical at best, since his Administration was correctly against it, but now he embraces it. But then he was the recipient of considerable affirmative action and still is.
Lars; well within the Swede quota.

Answer:

I haven't had time to read up on that decision yet, but in the sphere of education and college admissions I can certainly agree that race based admission policies have no place. Affirmative covered more than just race, it also covers age sex discrimination, I believe, and this is an area that needs much stiffer enforcement.
I've been busy testing software and writing bug reports for beta versions of several browsers for the Linux project and have missed out on a lot of news lately, but I agree that Bush desperately needs an increase in minority voters. I really don't think he can win legally next year without them.
What is the quota for Swedes, anyway? I think you are a fraud nayway, Lars. I looked in the photo gallery, and there is no way you could come from the same gene pool as Greta Garbo, Ann Margaret, and my all time favorite honey, Ingrid Bergman. It's obvious that sometime in the dim past a hapless Swedish tourist woke up in a Dublin alley
missing his passport ...
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Humans are amazing creatures. "With all the things you can train them to do, I've been considering getting one."-Stoney

Answer:

I can understand your disbelief, Dominoes, but I have several female relations that will dispute your contention. It may require some DNA testing to prove it, but from all available evidence, I am truly a Swede.
Lars; named after a grandfather

Answer:

It just depends who is talking, and to who they are talking to, whether they claim victory, or a loss.
It was a 2 part decision, The first part scar down the point system used by Michigan's undergraduate admissions process, which was a victory for Republicans,a loss to Democrats.
The 2nd part let stand the quota system used by Michigan's law school, a victory for Democrats, and a loss to Republicans.
So what the Supreme Court said, was "discrimination is fine, and you don't need to use a point system to try and make it look fair."

Answer:

Originally
So what the Supreme Court said, was "discrimination is fine, and you don't need to use a point system to try and make it look fair."
Or was it "discrimination is fine, but you must not use a point system to make it look fair." ???

Answer:

Still haven't read it yet, but from the way George Will and David Broder are talking about it, it was a poorly written decision that will create more litigation in the future.
___________________________
Humans are amazing creatures. "With all the things you can train them to do, I've been considering getting one."-Stoney

Answer:

If you read the legislative history of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, you will find therein a debate in which some Senator expresses a concern about quotas, and Hubert Humphrey responds that of course the law will not involve quotas...
It in fact has never been anything but quotas. However, the preferred word is "goals", and the "preferences" remain in effect until the "goals" are met.
The supreme irony of affirmative action laws is that the ones who will benefit most in the future will not be blacks, but people of other national origins who cannot claim to have been the victims of earlier discrimination, and who really do not have the moral claim that blacks assert.
Any system which rewards skin color or national origin is not going to bring forth the best and the brightest; it is only going to create a sense of entitlement.
Any system which institutionalizes the equality of results, rather than the equality of opportunity, is going to adopt policies that lower standards of living for all, directly and indirectly. Directly by taxation and redistribution of wealth. Indirectly by putting less qualified (hence less efficient) people in positions, resulting in a loss of potential productivity growth.
After 40 years of mixed success, the only place (in my view) that affirmative action has any place at all is in providing equal educational opportunities. That concept is race-indifferent, and if implemented would benefit us all.

Answer:

Well-said Lars.

Answer:

Good eye, Opie...!!
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