As the Supreme Court revisits the use of race in college
admissions, critics… (Paul Sakuma / Associated…) Affirmative
action, long one of America's most divisive social issues, is
about to grab headlines again. On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme
Court will hear arguments in a challenge to a state university's
use of race in selecting students. In many ways, the legal
issues in Fisher vs. University of Texas are the same as those
that came before the court in 1978 and 2003. But the broader
affirmative action debate has changed since those cases were
heard, and in ways that could point toward compromises that
might win broad public support. Since the late 1960s, the racial
preference discussion has been dominated by fairness questions.
Proponents saw preferences as a necessary way of ensuring that
racial minorities enjoy equal opportunity in the real world and
not just paper promises of fair treatment. Opponents saw
preferences as reverse discrimination, perpetuating racist
habits under a new guise. But in recent y