nope, the best way to stop discriminating is to actively encourage the government to do so on an ongoing basis and, in fact, establish numerical quotas for each race in education and other public arenas. instead of color blindness, we must classify people by race down to the last drop of blood. does that sound better than the simplistic gibbering of those awful conservatives (neocons, no doubt).

Yes, thanks, Eugene, for noticing! Actually, when I read Chief Justice Roberts' Opinion and the particular sentence ("The Way to Stop Discrimination on the Basis of Race Is To Stop Discriminating on the Basis of Race"), I frankly, privately thought it was traceable to the paragraph I wrote near the end of the Chicago Law Review piece, but of course, kept the thought to myself. --The reason I thought it might have that origin is simply that I knew it appeared in Judge Bea's (dissenting) opinion in the ninth circuit case under review, as I knew, too, that Bea was quoting it from Judge Mosk's strongly stated opinion for the Calfornia Supreme Court (I had some congenial correspondence with Mosk shortly thereafter...we subscribe to the same "strong" view).
And, all of this aside, quite personally, the particular paragraph in the Chicago law review article is one of the (very few) things I have put into print that I am pleased to have framed so unequivocally. Indeed, even these twenty years later, there is not one word of that particular paragraph--or sentiment--that I would change today.
Oh, for a final coincidence, Carlos Bea (the ninth circuit judge) is himself a fellow classmate from my Stanford Law School class (of '58), and we've had an ongoing congenial e-mail correspondence ever since he was appointed to the ninth circuit.
Last, just in case anyone might be interested (including those who disliked and heaped scorn on the quoted material as well as on Justice Roberts' rephrasing), I returned to this subject (of "using" race) in still another article I even now care about in much the same way. It is called, simply, "Affirmative Actions," (with "Affirmative" in italics) and appears at 46 Wayne Law Review 1517 (2000).
William Van Alstyne

The way to solve our race problem is to offer a premium such as $5000 + free college for each interracial kid produced. That would not discriminate against any race and would have the benefit of eliminating racial differences.

A better solution, of course, would be to penalize the parents of every pure-blood kid, the greater the racial purity, the higher the penalty.

But Asians are not invited to join. I have trouble justifying this.

Do Asians, historically or presently, have trouble getting admitted to your school?

--More generally, I take no position on the policy wisdom of affirmative action. My point is that the rhetorical value of the "way to stop discrimination" quote is not independent of its cognitive value, and that cognitive value is rather low.

Also do you really believe it strenghens your arguments to bring Bush into absolutely everything?

Of course!

And the same way you stop smoking. You simply stop smoking. Yeah, I know it's a bitch, but the patch works about as well as AA - it keeps the monkey on your back. It just pretties it up a little.

Many thanks to the various posts on this. It's been fascinating to see the roots of the Roberts rhetoric. It's worth noting that in the blogospheric reaction to Roberts' opinion, Roberts was tagged with spouting the "Strom Thurmond view." Stanley Mosk was no Strom Thurmond and neither is Roberts. It was also asserted that those who had fought Brown v. Board has no moral authority to interpret its legacy. Again, the Stanley Mosk sourcing quashes that idea. Finally, given the pedigree of the Roberts quote, isn't it a given that it will "have legs" as the decades roll? Call it wicked conservative "framing" if you want, but as the US becomes more multi-cultural, it will be harder and harder to argue that "the best way to fight racial discrimination is to engage in it."

Anderson:

'Do Asians, historically or presently, have trouble getting admitted to your school?'

Not now, no. Nor do blacks or Hispanics. Historically--We've had African Americas almost since the beginning (1800s), although in small numbers for much of that time. But the numbers of applicants, from what I understand, was very small as well. It may have been a simple demographic trend in higher ed, and not something that related to university policy. I can't say for sure.

Interesting, Hoosier.

FWIW, I think that focusing on diversity in college admissions is wrongheaded, &that we need greater intervention in grades K-12 so that there are plenty of academically qualified black students to attend college. But that, of course, would be much harder to do than the kind of policies you describe at your school.

Anderson wrote:
Do Asians, historically or presently, have trouble getting admitted to your school?

In the Seattle case Blacks "historically or presently" didn't have trouble getting admitted. The Seattle law wasn't designed to correct previous instances of State discrimination. It was designed to produce diversity in the face of the factual pattern of de jure segregation.

A current response to Kennedy is to try and institute economic diversity in admissions hoping that will produce racial diversity but the last study I read showed that admissions by economic diversity failed to achieve the tacit but unstated goal of racial equality.

Somewhat off topic but we are discussing "diversity" My question is what are the supposed benefits of achieving diversity on a college campus?

My eldest daughter went to Stanford in the 80's and my second daughter went to Michigan in the 90's. In both instances I was amazed to walk through campus and discuss with them integration in higher education. Both campuses had basically a 100% black dorm and 100% (minus a token) white dorms. The two groups absolutely never socialized and the only time they even saw each other was walking to class or in the classroom.

I walked through the campus on many occasions and observed large blocks of black students, totally and completely undiversified and large blocks of white students, totally and completely undiversified talking, frizbeeing and in general truly enjoying the company of their own. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

> Not discriminating solved a lot of problems in the past, however now race and class have become very intertwined

"have become" suggests that the intertwining is recent, but it isn't.

When did we try "not discriminating"?

Nice, Public Defender.

Affirmative action is a complicated issue, in law and practice. But I can't help but be reminded of Stephen Colbert's recurring bit in his right-wing-commentator-parody persona: "I don't see race. People tell me I'm white, and I take their word for it. . . ."

JosephSlater,

You're right, Roberts sounds a lot like Colbert, but he's more of a cross between Stephen Colbert and Cindy Sheehan.

We engage in war ("kill people") due to intrinsic moral qualifications

I hear the Pentagon is working on its "moral bomb" that kills only the evil soldiers, but the bleeding-heart liberals won't let them test it on human subjects.

As for capital punishment, I don't think "my victim was unspeakably wicked" is a defense in most states.

you're attempting to position yourself as possessing greater moral standing

Nope, just greater intelligence.

The news that race has no intrinsic moral qualifications did not make it to the South until 1865 ... is still not universally accepted on a pragmatic level by lots of white Americans ... and affirmative action is a rather blunt policy instrument for attempting to redress the bad effects of the attribution to race of intrinsic moral qualifications by generations of Americans.

You can quarrel with whether AA is a good idea, or whether it's constitutional, but please don't act stupid about why anyone ever thought it was necessary.