Letters: The problem with affirmative action

Re “Race returns to high court,” Aug. 31

California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down a Michigan law that clearly buttresses the Constitution’s equal protection clause (by barring racial preferences, which by design result in unequal protection) on the grounds that it violates that clause. It’s as if she’s asking the justices to rule that two plus two equals five.

Such is the length to which affirmative action proponents must go in their desperate attempts to deny the plain fact that granting racial preferences is not merely an injustice but a clear, unambiguous violation of both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

Regardless of affirmative action’s original intent, it is and always will be flatly unconstitutional and un-American, as California, Michigan, Arizona, Washington and Oklahoma have wisely determined.

E.G. Rice

Marina del Rey

If the Supreme Court strikes down a Michigan voter initiative that bans preferential treatment based on race, and this leads to the overturning of California’s Proposition 209, minority students here will benefit immediately.

Proposition 209 prohibits state programs from considering race, thereby eliminating the ability of pre-college academic programs to target underrepresented minority students. As a high school teacher for more than 30 years, I know that one of the main reasons many minority students don’t push themselves to succeed is a lack of self-confidence. These pre-college programs instill such confidence. However, these students must be targeted so they can participate.

Proposition 209 needs to be overturned so we can get back to the business of preparing minority students for college.

Evelyn Torres-Rangel

San Gabriel

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