Ernest Istook, who describes himself in this interesting piece (HatTip to Roger Clegg) as “now recovering after 14 years in Congress,” has some good advice for President Obama.
What began as affirmative action has transformed into reverse discrimination. Obama’s unique background gives him undeniable credibility to confront and correct this, and he’s dropped hints that he might consider it….
Yesterday’s laws and structures cannot create the racial neutrality that civil rights laws claim as our goal. They too often create resentment among whites while tainting many minority members with an appearance that their success is based on special treatment rather than merit (“the soft bigotry of low expectations”).
We can never produce equality by promoting inequality. In the 2003 Bollinger decision over law school admission, former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote for a 5-4 majority, “Race-conscious admissions policies must be limited in time.” She suggested 25 years as the outer limit. Might the court have decided differently if they’d known we would have a black President within five years?
“Dropped” is probably a good way to describe the faint “hints” that Obama has given of his willingness to reconsider race-based preferences. Still, Istook is right: he should pick them up, dust them off, and implement them. There are worse building blocks for Obama’s legacy than being known as the president who restored racial equality.
