Cheating In A Good Cause

In a Los Angeles Times OpEd, David Gelernter says the time to get rid of affirmative action is not 25 years from now, but now.

In practice, affirmative action means cheating in a good cause. (But all cheating, for any cause, gnaws at a nation’s moral innards like termites.) Affirmative action means a plus factor in university admissions, job hiring and promotion for candidates from protected groups, in the interests of “diversity.” (But why should “diversity” mean official “minorities” and women but not libertarians, farmers, Mormons, Texans, children of soldiers, aspiring Catholic priests, etc.?)

Perhaps counter-intuitively (to some), Gelernter argues that the nomination of a white male to the Supreme Court proves we no longer need affirmative action.

Today, affirmative action is ripe for the junkyard. There’s dramatic evidence in President Bush nominating a garden-variety white male to O’Connor’s seat. He said something important by doing so. Consider the fact that for much of the 20th century, the “Jewish seat” was a Supreme Court convention. To have one Jew on the court (no more, no less) seemed proper and fitting. But in time Jews went mainstream and the single “Jewish seat” quietly disappeared. (There are now two Jewish justices).

Bush has delivered a comparable message to women and minorities: Welcome to the mainstream! We don’t need a “woman’s seat” on the court. There are no more outsiders in American life.

Now let’s get rid of affirmative action.

Yes, let’s.