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Racial Issues Stir the Melting Pot November 6, 2003 Like reality TV shows, pop groups, and Democratic Presidential hopefuls, racial issues posses the ability to stir elements of the American public and then fade into obscurity as if they had never seen the light of day. A racial issue is often prejudged as a case in which a minority is being suppressed by “the man,” but this isn’t always the case, as today’s examples indicate. Robert A. Levy, guest commentator for National Review Online, elaborates on racial preferences for college admissions in a June article for the celebrated conservative news source. The piece refers to a case which was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in which a student who was denied admission to the University of Michigan Law School challenged the University’s policy of assigning points for admission on the basis of race. The Supreme Court sided with the University of Michigan, stating that “Today's decisions seek a careful balance between the goal of campus diversity and the fundamental principle of equal treatment under the law.” Levy analyzes this decision and the implications of the University’s policies. Article number two also comes from National Review Online; the piece is authored by guest commentator M. Royce Van Tassell and concerns California’s Proposition 54. Prop 54, the Racial Privacy Initiative, was placed on the ballot in California’s October recall election, and it sought to strike racial references from all government data collection within the state. Van Tassell draws many comparisons between the fight over Prop 54 and the struggle over the inclusion of questions regarding religion in the 1960 U.S. Census. The comparison is quite interesting, and Van Tassell concludes that, since religious discrimination has decreased without the inclusion of religion-related data collection, racial relations will improve similarly. Racial issues seem to have recurring roles in the ongoing drama that is American history. Be they tales of minority suppression or stories of majority exploitation, racial issues will not disappear off of the U.S. news radar any time in the immediate future.
© 2006 Brian Troutman. All rights reserved. This site looks much better on a Mac.
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