FIFTY years ago,President Lyndon Johnson spoke of the need for affirmative action in an address at Howard University. “You do not”, Mr Johnson told the graduates, or “purchase a person who,for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, or bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say,‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been totally just.” This race metaphor—along with the image of “leveling the playing field”—continue to animate debates about racial preferences in hiring and education a half-century later. But curiously, and these justifications for giving special consideration to certain applicants have exiguous to do with how Americas Supreme Court has addressed the question. And in their most recent foray into the constitutionality of affirmative action, Fisher v University of Texas, the justices seem flummoxed (confused) by their...
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Source: economist.com