|Pioneering black students fought for affirmative action,
opening opportunities to others [GALLO/GETTY] Washington, DC -
As early as this coming autumn, the United States Supreme Court
will revisit the constitutionality of race and gender conscious
admissions within the sphere of public higher education in the
US. By granting a review of Fisher v The University of Texas,
the country's highest court has not only repositioned
affirmative action at legal and political centre stage - during
an election year, nonetheless - but has also signalled that the
programme may be making its last stand. Affirmative action has
found itself enduring its greatest onslaught, and is clinging on
to its very existence, since the election of the nation's first
minority (not only black) president. Beyond the dark irony, the
spreading fiction that is "colour blindness" contends that race,
culture and gender-conscious opportunity and access programs -
or affirmative action - have run their course and are no longer
needed. The Fisher c