Supreme Court and Affirmative Action: Fisher Case a Chance to Reframe Issue

Supreme Court and Affirmative Action: Fisher Case a Chance to Reframe Issue: As the Supreme Court prepares to hear oral arguments this week in Fisher v. University of Texas, we can expect our country to descend into the now standard hand-wringing about affirmative action. But our conversations about Fisher, like those surrounding the Ricci v. DeStefano firefighter case four years ago and the Grutter v. Bollinger case nine years ago, will most likely avoid engaging the core questions that lie at the heart of whether and how affirmative action should be continued.

The blame for the inadequate nature of our conversation about affirmative action must be shared by civil rights organizations and right-wing groups. In the late '70s and early '80s, when right-wing groups and the Reagan Justice Department were engaged in a full-frontal attack on affirmative action, civil rights organizations were hard at work fighting the toughest cases in the courts. What civil rights organizations were not doing was fighting the right on the terrain of America's hearts and minds. Of course, civil rights leaders thought that they had fought that battle already. The civil rights movement was not just a monumental legal and legislative victory over institutionalized racism in the U.S.; it was also -- and perhaps more importantly -- a moral victory over the idea of white supremacy.