Sanjay Sanghoee: Race, Money, and Inequality: Time for a New Affirmative Action: In expectation of the Supreme Court's ruling on Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, which pits a white woman's allegation of racial discrimination against the University's Affirmative Action program, one of the most important social programs in the United States is once again under fire.
But regardless of what the court decides, it is urgent today to understand why affirmative action exists in the first place, as well as to examine ways in which the program can be modernized.
Let's start with the fact that affirmative action has been crucial for the advancement of minorities (and especially black people) in America. Even as recently as 2011, the income gap between blacks and whites was staggering -- according to the Census Bureau, the median income for blacks was $32,229 per year while the median income for whites was $55,412 per year, and the unemployment rate for black Americans (13.2 percent) is double that of whites (6.8 percent).
