By: Wesley Long
The Supreme Court of the United States is set to rule on a key case concerning affirmative action by the end of the month. As explained in this CNN report, the outcome of the case, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, will set a precedent either allowing or denying state sponsored institutions the authority to make judgments about individuals on racial grounds.
“Fisher sued the state university after her college application was rejected in 2008 when she was a high school senior in Sugar Land, Texas, outside Houston.
“She claims the individualized, discretionary admission policies violate her rights, and favor African-American and Hispanic applicants over whites and Asian-Americans.”
“The school… defends the educational benefits of its "holistic" policy of considering race as one of many factors -- designed to create a diverse campus.
The Obama administration agrees and is backing the school, saying to grow a nation built on differing complexions and backgrounds will depend on future leaders "who possess the understanding of diversity that is necessary to govern and defend the United States."
To be frank, it is appalling that race is still considered when applying for higher education. It seems that affirmative action’s advocates have completely lost sight of the core principles behind the civil rights movement of half a century ago. Martin Luther King’s dream wasn’t to see the roles of previous racial injustice reversed; it was to see a day when people weren’t defined by race whatsoever, being judged “not… by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
The CNN report aptly compared the situation facing Fischer with a similar scenario from the 1950s, in which Heman Sweatt was denied admission to a law school due to the government mandated “separate but equal” segregation. The government required institutions of higher learning to make judgments about individuals based on nothing more than external appearances, such as skin complexion. Clearly such legislation is unjust, yet many fail to question similar racial judgments employed today in the name of “diversity” with the same level of critical-mindedness or oppose it with indignation.
Campaign for Liberty’s chairman Ron Paul once addressed the fundamental problem underlying government involvement in racial issues, commenting:
“Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals… as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called "diversity" actually perpetuate racism. Their obsession with racial group identity is inherently racist. The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence, not skin color, gender, or ethnicity.”
The U.S. government was designed to protect the rights of individuals; all who stand for liberty should wholeheartedly oppose any combination of racial judgment and government.
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