The contorted logic that led to affirmative action laws appears finally to be losing favor. By refusing to hear a challenge to California's Proposition 209, the Supreme Court has struck a well-deserved blow to the Orwellian notion that some people are inherently more equal than others.
The only thing better would have been for the court to agree to hear the case and then to issue a precedent-setting ruling. But if the justices follow this decision by ruling against racial quotas later this year in a case involving New Jersey school firing (which also hinges on racial preferences), they will be sending a strong message about the need to end using race, gender or ethnicity as the primary factors in public employment.Affirmative action may have heightened awareness about the discriminations endured historically by a segment of society, but it failed to teach the proper lesson on the subject.
No matter how well-meaning its proponents are, discrimination is wrong. It was wrong decades ago when people of color were routinely dismissed from consideration because of their skin, and it is wrong today when that situation is reversed. Affirmative action does little more than validate an offensive practice by redefining the victims.
Discrimination can be eradicated only through the vigilant assurance that each person hired and each contract let is based on merit and qualifications. As we have stated before on this page, affirmative action did little to help the plight of blacks and other minorities. The percentage of black men with white collar jobs increased much more in the decades preceding 1970 than in the 27 years since affirmative action became commonplace in governments and the private sector.
Critics try to bolster their arguments by pointing to the drop in minority enrollments at California law schools since Proposition 209 took effect. Indeed, Berkeley's admissions of black and Hispanic students have fallen by 80 percent. But the focus instead ought to be on why more minority students aren't prepared to pass entrance exams. Americans ought to question the quality of basic education programs and make sure all students are given an equal chance to learn, regardless of race.
Rather than arbitrarily discriminating in favor of minorities, the goal ought to be to raise the general level of education and excellence throughout society, and the Supreme Court has helped point the nation in that direction.