To judge merit on the basis of race is to judge irrationally. So long as it is in the service of campus diversity, virtually any form of racial preference is allowed. They are wrong not because of damage they do to majority groups but because of the damage they do to the principle of equality and non-discrimination, a principle that benefits all people. Unlike today's discriminatory affirmative action, nondiscriminatory affirmative action was a wise and just policy, one that sought to find the best regardless of race. In America, race matters.
Race is the single most divisive fact in our nation.
And we lie to ourselves if we say we are doing good when we separate, reward and punish by race. And on our campuses, bad things are happening with a vengeance. And, having said to America for so long, do not judge by race, do not prefer by race, we now say dwell on race, and see how the spoils of society are divisible through race competition. I mean the antagonism between contemporary education and the public. In narrowness of scholarship, in smallness of vision, in our unwillingness to promote or often even to understand civic needs, a large part of the academy sets itself up in conscious opposition to the common sense of the American public.