Today, the justices of the 6th U.S. Circuit of Appeals ruled against an amendment to the Michigan state constitution that sought to circumvent the process of Affirmative Action in enrollment practices by institutions of higher learning within its borders. The ruling is expected to be appealed straight to the Supreme Court, who will likely hear the facts of the case and make a judgment right around crunch time for the 2012 Presidential Election.
With a black man in the White House and African-American college and university enrollment at an all-time high, it's not at all surprising to see a backlash against an institution in society that seeks to engender equality of outcome by enforcing equality of opportunity (in an ideal sense). Affirmative Action is a politically volatile subject. Given the timing of this particular ruling, the influence of ideology and rhetoric will certainly have a profound impact on the way in which the Supreme Court's subsequent ruling will be digested by the public at large.
The achievement gap in education in America continues to be a major problem. Perhaps Affirmative Action, in-and-of-itself, isn't the answer. Certainly, academic performance statistics would indicate the program has had a negligible effect on the success rate of minority students in the American education system. But the problem of education discrimination should not be solved (or attempted to be solved) in a partisan shouting match, or in the ideological make-up of a particular set of judges at any given time in a courtroom. The data is simply too complex, and the stakes of acting in error are dire. Political posturing through rhetoric is an inevitability of the election cycle that we are just months away from being thrust head-long into. Let's keep the future of American students out of the shouting match, for a change, and let cooler heads prevail.
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