America was founded on complimentary ideas of individual freedom and individual responsibility. We have, instead, become obsessed with being members of groups rather than standing as individuals. Martin Luther King’s call for men to be judged not on the color of their skin, but the content of their character, has long been forgotten. Instead of ignoring differences of race, we are more conscious of it than ever.

There was a time in this country that Jews were simply not admitted to Ivy League schools. In order to eliminate this discrimination, schools were forced to base admissions on the results of college entrance exams. The great part of admissions testing was that the test could not distinguish between Jew and Gentile. Results were clear, and you knew whether or not you made the grade.

Then, in 1969, the Supreme Court "discovered" in the Constitution the notion of "disparate impact." In the case of Griggs v. Duke Power, the court ruled that by requiring that applicants for jobs hold a high school diploma, Duke Power was engaging in a policy which had a greater impact on blacks than whites, since blacks were statistically less likely to have completed high school. From then on, virtually any action by any entity which resulted in statistically different outcomes for blacks and whites was declared unconstitutional based on this precedent.

Within a few years, pre-employment tests and college admissions tests were thrown out. No longer was equality of opportunity enough. Now, any test which results did not show a random distribution of all races in each percentile was presumptively unconstitutional. In fact, making the grade no longer guaranteed admission. If you exceeded a quota, your test results didn’t matter.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 explicitly prohibits quotas. Hubert Humphrey, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, said he would eat the bill page by page if he thought it would result in quotas. Yet the EEOC, created under the auspices of this bill, made the application of quotas their highest priority. In a mere four years, they convinced the Supreme Court to reverse the intent of the legislature and make racism the official policy of the United States government.

Did all this help blacks? More got into college. But the presumption behind quotas is, by virtue of its implicit condescension, both simple and destructive. Blacks, you see, will never get into college unless white liberals help them. They simply cannot do it on their own. Now, white students look at black students and think that they are there not because of their knowledge, but because they are filling a quota. Rather than changing the attitudes of whites toward blacks, it made them even more intolerant and recalcitrant. This has resulted in blacks becoming even more suspicious of whites, and this heightened tension on both sides has made a bad situation worse.

We would love to hear from you. Complements, criticisms, questions, suggestions, and seriously scorching flames are all equally welcome.