action.

a moment of clarity. 

words. 

 "...In the real world, if hundreds or thousands of black students have their opportunities constrained because of a system that places obstacles in their particular path, then most of us shrug and say, that’s just the way things are, and there isn’t anything that can or should be done about it. But if an affirmative action program should result in a single white student having to go to her second choice school? Then we must change the law, and move heaven and earth to make sure it never happens again.

Meanwhile, the preferences whites enjoy remain firmly in place. There have yet to be any successful laws or ballot initiatives to ban “legacy admissions,” in which applicants who had a relative who attended the university are given special preference. No one can come up with rational grounds for retaining this affirmative action for wealthy white people, yet universities all across the country do. And there are other only slightly less blatant forms of favoritism; for instance, the reliance on standardized test scores provides a boost for wealthy students, most of them white, whose parents can afford expensive test prep courses and tutoring. Again, no serious person contends that SATs or ACTs are a pure measure of “merit,” yet they continue to play a huge role in college admissions."

THE PLUM LINE: The Supreme Court and the reality of racial preferences

SEE ALSO:

the firm. 

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Why Care About McCutcheon?