Resolution of the issues surrounding the use of affirmative action in higher education will require the identification of common ground among the opposing sides. Moving away from diversity toward pluralism would achieve that. It would still have the same goal, providing for more opportunity for underrepresented minorities. Pluralism is a common ground tying a long American tradition to a contemporary problem and giving commonly understood meaning to the M.L. King hope that all people would someday be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. The United States has a federal form of government in which citizens consent to two different governments, state and federal, to exercise powers over individuals directly.
Federalism provides inherent checks and balances between the two governments.
The excesses of one can be, and often are, corrected by the other. In matters of race relations in the United States, we often think of the federal government as the check against racist policies that have existed from time to time among the states. It has not always been so, may not be so in the present, and will not necessarily be so in the future. To the many people who have seen the 1997 motion picture Amistad, the failures of the federal government in matters of race are no surprise. In the Amistad case, President Van Buren used the federal government's powers to protect those with interests in black slavery.