The Formula for ‘Equal Opportunity’: Why Affirmative Action
Isn’t Enough  4:34 am in Uncategorized by Michelle Chen
Originally posted at In These Times  Once again, affirmative
action is on trial in the Supreme Court. The pending
case, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, challenges U.T.
Austin’s admissions policy, which aims to bring in more students
of color by considering race among other factors. The case is
driven by the misplaced racial anxieties provoked by affirmative
action, but it might offer a platform for truly grappling with
the nature of institutional racism and the oft-politicized,
seldom-understood concept of “equal opportunity” in schools and
workplaces.  The backlash against affirmative action—and more
broadly against institutional efforts to desegregate schools and
workplaces—has been accompanied by straw-man accusations of
“reverse racism,” heard in debates about everything
from President Obama to high school textbooks. Meanwhile,
affirmative action’s detractors paper over the persist