A few points on the twisted legal reasoning of the US Supreme Court (and many other lower courts) in regards to racism based hiring and enrollment (aka affirmative action.)
Below are some of the arguments used to suppored the practice and why each of them is wrong...
1. Is there a state or national interest in demanding that a profession or school have a higher "ethnic diversity" ratio? There clearly isn't an interes in rigging the rules where that happens. How is it better to have more doctors of a minority race, for example? Does a black doctor do a better job than a white doctor? What interest does the state have in fixing the rules to get more unqualified minority doctors in hospitals, while forcing highly qualified white doctors out of hospitals by rigging the system?
2. In regards to school admissions- what interest does it serve to keep out whites with high test scores and better qualifications and enroll black students who have lower test scores and fewer qualifications? How does a more ethnically diverse student body help the state or even the school itself? With the logic of affirmative action rulings- the following has to be true for all schools.
If one school is 50% white and 50% non-white (may those students be black americans, asian americans, hispanic americans, etc), and another school has a ratio of 90% white to 10% non-white...the first school with a more "racially diverse" student body HAS to be a better school that is more capable of teaching students. It also has to be better for society as a whole- because, the affirmative action laws claim that a more racially diverse student body, even if said students have lower test scores and fewer qualifications, is a much better learning environment, which has to lead to high test scores and more qualified graduates.
Of course, we know that is not the case. If that were the case, you'd also have to say that colleges that are considered, traditionally, to be mostly black are failures in the same sense...due to their lack of racial diversity in the student body. Racial diversity does not, by definition, make a positive. If you take a room full of high school drop outs that is racially diverse, and a group of all white graduate students- wouldn't the all white group be better suited for more jobs? Wouldn't they probably be better suited to run things (companies, schools, government bodies, etc), and wouldn't they be better suited to success out in the real world overall? The idea that the most racially diverse group of people is better for all involved and closer to some sort of mystical utopia is, in itself, a racist idea...it asserts that people of different races are vastly different creatures just because of their skin tone, and it's obvious that such an idea is not only factually inaccurate, but wholly discriminatory itself.
3. SCOTUS and lower courts have ruled that affirmative action programs that cause higher college enrollment of minority students that aren't meant to be where they are (they're given spots they haven't earned, and most of them find that they cannot handle the pressures of being in a spot where they have no right to be in to begin with) actually lead to a decrease in discrimination. But, common sense tells us that that the opposite is almost surely true most of the time. If you give a job to an unqualified minority worker because of his skin color, that means that he doesn't have to work as hard to climb the ladder of success, that he doesn't have to play by the same rules...that a white worker can work ten times harder and longer, and be much more qualified, yet that white worker can be refused the job in order to comply with the inherent racism of affirmative action plans. It's obvious to everyone (besides the courts who made these absurd rulings, and those who support them- mainly liberals), that this sort of discrimination CREATES MORE racism. If a black worker took the job that you had worked for, and he got that job simply because of his skin color, wouldn't that create racial tension, and even possibly aninmosty towards that person because of race (which easily leads to a subtle form of racism due to your own plight caused by racism in the first place?)
Giving undeserved promotions, jobs, contracts, or school enrollments to minorities who might be less qualified, might not work as hard and as long to get there, and who might be anywhere near ready for the position they find themselves in obviously will lead to more tension between groups of different races. Anyone who thinks that this plan will lead to less "discrimination" (we'll fix long-past discrimination of one group by discriminating the other group today!), is living in a fantasy world and knows nothing about human nature.
These three points (some of the main points made by those who support racism based hiring and enrollment (aff. action) take common sense and human nature and turn them on their head. The ideas are completely backward. Racism doesn't solve racism...and one would be a fool to think it does. The whole idea asserts that blacks are different than any other white. That blacks are not as capable, that blacks are different socially and culturally...I just don't find that to be the case in the general sense. And where those differences do exist, I think it's mainly due to the idea pushed on the American people by those who support absurd ideas such as affirmative action and other ideas which have reverse discrimination at their core. Sure, there are subtle differences in economic classes and by ideology, as well as groups living in different areas (a new englander will have a slightly different view of the world than someone from Alabama, for example), but in the general sense- it's dangerous to look at the different races as being completely different creatures, having vastly different ideas of how the world works, and of human nature itself. If those differences actually do exist in the real world, then frankly- we're doomed as a society, and we'll be in need of a lot more than "affirmative action."
MORE:
Affirmative Action Hurts Those It's Supposed to Help
On flattering minorities (Jeff Jacoby)
The Affirmative Action Myth (Cato Institute)