![]() ![]() The expectation that each race and gender should, always and everywhere, be represented in numbers that reflect its position in society at large is doomed to fail, and to stir racial resentment at the same time. The left-wing attempt to legislate equality of outcomes is just as utopian. Moreover, even if the Congress decided tomorrow to prohibit discrimination in favor or against any person on the basis of race or gender, the questions at the heart of affirmative action would endure: How do you identify " discrimination"? Should it be inferred from intent or result? Are informal quotas the safest way of avoiding it? Both the California civil rights initiative and the federal statute endorsed by Senator Bob Dole, for example, forbid discrimination but don't manage to define it. As the gap between the lsat scores of white and black candidates at the University of Texas shows, the end of affirmative action would mean, in many cases, a return to lily-white universities and workplaces (see "Is Affirmative Action Doomed?" TNR, October 17, 1994). When asked point-blank, few conservatives are honestly willing to accept the widespread resegregation that would follow from a rigid ban on racial preferences. But is his task impossible? It's an urgent question, made all the more so by the inadequacy of the two alternatives.Ĭolor-blindness, for all its moral and political appeal, is not really a practical option. Having raised expectations so dramatically, he no longer has the luxury of embracing contradictory positions, or retreating into euphemisms. Is there a middle ground on affirmative action, an oasis between radical color-blindness on the right and racial quota-mongering on the left? As President Clinton prepares to unveil his conclusions on the subject, it's hard not to sympathize with his political predicament, but hard also not to anticipate his speech with a sense of dread. Neither color-blindness nor quota-mongering. ![]()
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