Is Affirmative Action the Right Fight

You might as well beat those ploughshares back into swords: the battle over affirmative action is on again in Michigan.

The state Court of Appeals ruled on June 11 that a petition to bar affirmative action can go ahead. If the petition language became law, state agencies and universities would no longer be permitted to consider the race of their applicants. Affirmative action supporters plan to appeal the ruling, but in any event the legal delay appears to have pushed any ballot initiative on the subject out to the November 2006 elections.

Meanwhile, the state House passed a budget amendment last Wednesday forbidding government-funded universities from using racial preferences in admissions. Rep. Julie Dennis (D-Muskegon) called the prohibition of state-sponsored racial preferences "racist," and House Democrats exchanged recriminations over their failure to stop the amendment’s passage. Tempers soon flared and, in a scene more common to legislatures in Taiwan or South Korea than Lansing, Michigan, the verbal sparring got physical.

Rep. Morris Hood (D-Detroit) grabbed at Democratic staffer Alan Canady, who shoved him back. Other legislators and the House sergeants pulled the two apart before the altercation went any further. No word if Hood or Canady has been snapped up by the major leagues of political pugilism in Taipei or Seoul.

You know a public policy fight has gotten ugly when skirmishes erupt not just between the opposing camps, but within them.

So before we get completely lost in the fog of affirmative action warfare, we should ask ourselves: is this even the right fight? What is the fundamental problem we are trying to solve, and is affirmative action really the right solution at the right time?

[ Read the conclusion of this piece on the Mackinac Center website. ]