Affirmative Action Ruling ‘Just the End of the Beginning’
Supreme Court sounds a knell for race-based university admissions and opens the way for the next fight — board rooms.
“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” Those are the words of the Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, in finding that Harvard and the University of North Carolina have — in their race-based admissions policies — been violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. The decision is a major step in redeeming America’s constitutional commitment to a more perfect Union.
It happens that two days before the decision, we had a long and moving phone conversation with, in Edward Blum, the civil rights leader who set the winning strategy against race-based affirmative action. He is not a lawyer, just an all-American idealist. It is he who organized Students for Fair Admissions, which was the plaintiff in the cases against Harvard and the University of North Carolina. He has devoted his life to this struggle.
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