Ruling Challenges Us To Ensure Equality

When affirmative action was created, it was needed. Persons whose gender wasn’t male and whose skin wasn’t pink were effectively excluded from the ladders of economic opportunity. Systematic effort, enforced by the government that fostered the dream of equal opportunity, was the only way to overcome ingrained discrimination.

Since that time, considerable progress has occurred.

Is the progress sufficient to end federally enforced affirmative action? That’s debatable, but the debate is academic because the U.S. Supreme Court has settled it.

The court ruled last week that government programs granting preferential treatment based on race are “inherently suspect and presumptively invalid.” The general history of discrimination in the United States does not justify affirmative action policies, it ruled. Only as a last resort to correct a specific pattern of discrimination can preferential treatment be allowed, the court said.

Its decision arose from the federal government’s practice of awarding contracts to minority-owned firms even if white contractors underbid them. The ruling did not directly address private-sector affirmative action, or affirmative action benefiting women.

But the ruling signals a sea change. Other recent rulings invalidated court-ordered school desegregation and the award of college scholarships based on race.

Our highest court has reversed direction. So has the legislative branch of government, where conservatives hostile to affirmative action have taken power.

Like it or not, federal government is sending a stark message to affirmative action’s beneficiaries: Swim, or sink. The lifeguard is off duty.

Some white males, who felt sorry for themselves in spite of their continuing workplace dominance, will applaud. Others will not mourn the demeaning paternalism and co-worker suspicions that go hand in hand with preferences.

Once the battle moves beyond those familiar old resentments, what remains is a challenge, one that will test our society’s better instincts and its commitment to equal opportunity.

In the future employers will hire and schools will enroll based upon standards of self-interest and, maybe, social responsibility. By those yardsticks, there still are incentives - discovered during the affirmative action era - to continue the progress toward equal opportunity.

To be more effective with students of color, schools need instructors and administrators of color. To sell products to women and minorities, businesses need employees and administrators who have walked in those customers’ shoes. To tap the best available talent, employers and educators are foolish to rule out large and growing segments of the population. To create more consumers with buying power, wise community leaders extend decent education and employment to the underclass.

Companies working to build diverse workplaces can testify that diversity means fresh ideas, more options, new opportunities.

So, will progress continue? The answer will measure our nation’s commitment to its ideals.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board