David Copley: A program without morals

With the Trent Lott debacle of last December, political pundits from across the country assumed the Republican Party would abandon its core principles and cave on racial issues. These predictions seemed on target when Senator Lott publicly declared himself a supporter of affirmative action during an interview on Black Entertainment Television. But President George W. Bush is a principled fighter. He will not accept a policy as misguided as affirmative action because of pressure from special interest groups. In the words of the eminent TV philosopher Homey the Clown of In Living Color fame, "Homey don't play that." Last Wednesday, President Bush made the decision to file a "friend of the court" brief opposing affirmative action in the cases Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger, now heading to the Supreme Court to be heard this spring. Nowhere is the moral bankruptcy of affirmative action better illustrated than in these cases. The University of Michigan is being challenged for its use of race in the undergraduate and law school admissions processes. The university grades candidates on a point system, with 100 out of a possible 150 usually good for admission. A perfect SAT score is worth a meager 12 points. The color of your skin can earn you a whopping 20 points. Ironically, the beneficiaries of such admissions policies are rarely underprivileged but in fact from well-to-do families. Should the child of a wealthy black businessman receive a 20-point preference over the child of a working-class mechanic from Detroit? Not only are these preferential treatments immoral, they're also illegal. According to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, "No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." So a program that receives federal funding cannot differentiate between applicants based on race, color or national origin. Nothing to debate. Nothing to discuss. It's that simple. Yet affirmative action has remained at least marginally legal in this country for many decades. Thanks to Regents of the University of California v. Bakke in 1978, universities have been able to discriminate for or against applicants based on race as long as they don't use a numerical quota system in doing so. How did this violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 become codified in case law? Through unmitigated judicial activism. A group of five Supreme Court justices decided to legislate from the bench and override the law of the land because they felt they had a "compelling government interest" in doing so. But if we allow our judges to change the law based on their own personal whims, then why even bother to have a legislature or a written Constitution? Most Americans realize the hypocrisy of preferential treatment in college admissions and hiring. According to a Washington Post poll conducted in the spring of 2001, 92 percent of Americans are opposed to race-based preferences, including 86 percent of African Americans. While affirmative action was originally intended to rectify past discrimination, its proponents now argue for it based on the need for "diversity" on college campuses. Most people on college campuses want diversity. But diversity is more than skin deep. True diversity includes differences in thought, culture, background and experience. Skin color should have no more bearing on this than height, weight or shoe size. There are reasonable programs that can benefit underprivileged minorities while passing both legal and moral litmus tests. But these programs should be based on economic position rather than race. Universities should seek out promising students who haven't had access to the opportunities afforded to wealthier students, regardless of their skin color. The government should develop programs that extend credit to entrepreneurs establishing businesses in impoverished areas. These programs will directly benefit minorities that need help, without generating the much-deserved outrage of current preferential treatment programs. I believe people in both major political parties ultimately have the same goal -- that every American, regardless of skin color, has access to a quality education and the opportunity to be successful. But using race as a factor in hiring or in college admissions is antithetical to this mission. It's exactly what we're supposed to be fighting against. I applaud the Bush administration for its stand on the issue. Hopefully, the days of color-conscious admissions policies will soon be buried on the ash heap of history where they rightfully belong. David Copley is a sophomore Finance and Real Estate major from Bellevue, Wash.

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