Don't do me any favors: a black case against race preferences: with the U.S. Supreme Court about to decide whether racial preferences are Constitutional, TAE presents some intellectual background on this critical case--with contributions from John McWhorter, Jim Sleeper, Deroy Murdock, Ken Lee, and Lino Graglia.

I am an African-American linguistics professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and students often come by my office for mentoring. One such student, a Chinese American, had heard that I'd been on the radio discussing affirmative action. "How do you feel about it?" she asked. "Well," I said, "I think in universities it's obsolete." "Aren't you in favor of diversity?" was her immediate response, as it is for most students exposed to the issue largely through the college newspaper's editorial page and angry speeches by student activists.

"Diversity" only made its way into the affirmative action debate a few decades ago, and through the back door at that. It started with one man. In 1973 and again in 1974, Allan Bakke was denied admission to the University of California at Davis's medical school despite an A- grade-point average and an MCAT score within the top tenth of the nation. Given that black students were regularly admitted with GPAs in the C range and MCATs in the bottom third, Bakke charged the university with discrimination.

In the Supreme Court decision in 1978, Justice Lewis Powell concurred with four other justices that quota systems like Davis's were un-Constitutional. He submitted however that it was nonetheless appropriate for schools to base admissions decisions on a quest for a "diverse student body."

This argument seems innocent enough on its face, but universities quickly seized it as a cover for admitting black students with significantly lower qualifications than white or Asian students. Ever since, university administrators have disguised their two-tier admissions policies by hiding behind "diversity."

Lately, courts have begun calling these policies un-Constitutional distortions of the Bakke decision, with judgments entered recently against the University of Texas, the University of Georgia, and the University of Michigan Law School. I dearly hope that the Supreme Court will invalidate Powell's "diversity" opinion once and for all. Yes, I am in favor of "diversity"--among equals. The Bakke decision has taught a generation of young Americans that black students are more important for their presence in pictures in promotional brochures than for their scholastic qualifications. Ultimately, this perpetuates the very underperformance that has made the "diversity" fig leaf necessary.

White guilt is a dangerous and addictive drug. For nearly three decades the Bakke decision has supported education administrators in this habit. The ideas these people have promoted are untruthful, destructive, and antithetical to both black excellence and racial harmony. And they are racist.

The very term "diversity" is a crafty evasion. Mormons, paraplegics, and poor whites exert little pull on the heartstrings of admissions committees supposedly committed to making college campuses "look like America." In the late 1960s, college administrators assumed that the low representation of blacks on campuses was due to discrimination. The good-thinking white chancellor saw the task ahead as one of door-opening, providing some remedial assistance where necessary. But efforts to bring qualified blacks to campuses ran up against the uncomfortably small number of such people in an America just past legalized segregation. For those who were admitted, professors proved unable to undo years of lacking basic learning skills.