Sometimes I think that the political discourse in the USA has moved completely into the surreal. This morning, I listened to and read reports about the upcoming Supreme Court argument on a case determining the constitutionality of the use of affirmative action in admissions by the University of Texas. Under the current system, this public university admits those Texas students who are in the top 10% of their high school class and then moves on to select others for the remainder of the freshman class. In that second group, race is one of the factors included by the admissions team. It is said that the goal is "diversity", but some groups like Asian Americans are actually disadvantaged in a rather severe way by the use of race as a factor. According to reports, the average Asian American applicant needs an SAT score 500 points higher to gain acceptance than the average African American applicant. The Supreme Court will decide if such different treatment based upon race is permissible.
The Court will render its decision by June of 2016. And it is not that decision which led to my writing this post. No, it was the comment of the representative of the NAACP on the dispute which caught my attention. The NAACP said that if the Court fails to uphold the race based preferences at the University of Texas, it would send the "unfortunate message" that "race doesn't matter."
RACE DOESN'T MATTER! The NAACP says that those word are a bad message to be avoided? When did that happen? Think of Martin Luther King who wanted people to be judged by the quality of their character rather than by their race. Think of all those people who struggled in the civil rights movement to make certain that race didn't matter. Think even of those today who complain about police treatment of blacks being different from that of whites; in other words their complain is that for the police race does matter. Now suddenly for the NAACP, it's a bad message?
The Court will render its decision by June of 2016. And it is not that decision which led to my writing this post. No, it was the comment of the representative of the NAACP on the dispute which caught my attention. The NAACP said that if the Court fails to uphold the race based preferences at the University of Texas, it would send the "unfortunate message" that "race doesn't matter."
RACE DOESN'T MATTER! The NAACP says that those word are a bad message to be avoided? When did that happen? Think of Martin Luther King who wanted people to be judged by the quality of their character rather than by their race. Think of all those people who struggled in the civil rights movement to make certain that race didn't matter. Think even of those today who complain about police treatment of blacks being different from that of whites; in other words their complain is that for the police race does matter. Now suddenly for the NAACP, it's a bad message?
No comments:
Post a Comment