On the menu today: This is the last Morning Jolt until July 5; may you have safe travels as we enter the Independence Day holiday weekend. The story of affirmative action’s rise and fall includes a curious chapter on how the first African-American president initially sounded open to its reform and to altering the programs to focus on class, but then quickly abandoned that idea upon taking office. The Supreme Court has ended the race-based approach. Meanwhile, there’s still no credible evidence that human arsonists, and not lightning, started the Quebec forest fires.
Affirmative Action’s Rise and Fall
There was a time, not that long ago, when Democrats could acknowledge flaws in affirmative-action programs. In fact, one of the party’s most popular leaders publicly recognized that a system designed and built upon the assumption that all whites were inherently privileged and all blacks, Latinos, or other minorities were inherently underprivileged was simply incompatible with the reality of life in modern America.
While on the Harvard Law Review editorial staff, young Barack Obama interacted with critics of affirmative action in a respectful, engaging, good-faith manner ...
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