Is Affirmative Action Still Necessary?
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Affirmative action or quota system. It's a debate that's been reignited because of Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings.</s>COSTELLO: Absolutely. You know, it's clear some people feel affirmative action ought to go away, just saying. It's time for my special segment. Just saying. With an African-American in the White House and a soon-to-be Hispanic on the Supreme Court, is it time to say no to affirmative action?</s>COSTELLO (voice-over): Born at the height of the civil rights movement, affirmative action helped minority students like Sonia Sotomayor get into elite schools like Princeton.</s>SOTOMAYOR: I am a product of affirmative action. I am the perfect affirmative action baby. My test scores were not comparable to that of my colleagues at Princeton or Yale.</s>COSTELLO: Keep in mind, back then only 12 percent of law school students nationwide were women and only seven percent were minorities. Today, the numbers have changed dramatically. Almost half of law school students are women and 23 percent are minority. And minorities and women, overall, seem to be excelling. America votes a black president, a woman, secretary of state, and the list goes on and on and on. (on camera): I'm just saying... (voice-over): ...time to say no to affirmative action?</s>KEN BLACKWELL, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: For us to operate under the nomenclature of affirmative action to operate on racial preferences and quotas is idiotic and counterproductive.</s>COSTELLO: It's a sentiment echoed by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote in his memoir of his Yale law degree, "I graduated from one of America's top law schools, but racial preference had robbed my achievement of its true value." And we found plenty of other Americans who agreed with him.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't see the point in it anymore.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's time to go anyway.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's time to consider ending it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think it's relevant anymore.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There will always be some group that would need it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe affirmative action should have never been in place in the first place.</s>COSTELLO: But others say not so fast. Yes, we have a black president, but there is just one black senator and two Hispanics.</s>CATHY AREU, CATALINA MAGAZINE: The day that we have a nominee for the Supreme Court and we don't bring up the word Latina or woman. I think that's a great day. I think we'll just say here's our new nominee, we're going to ask her questions. Then we won't need affirmative action.</s>COSTELLO: Couple more things to keep in mind. Expert say minority enrollment at major public universities has actually fallen. It's not exactly growing. And it would be difficult to say discrimination on the job has disappeared for ordinary people. Despite this, voters in at least four states have limited the scope of affirmative action seeing it as a quota system and seeing it as anything but fair. And, of course, we want to know what our viewers think about this this morning. Is it time to say no to affirmative action? Should affirmative action go away? E-mail me on my blog at cnn.com/amfix. We want to know what you think.</s>ROBERTS: And a reminder that the much-anticipated CNN documentary "BLACK IN AMERICA 2" premieres next Wednesday and Thursday, July 22nd and 23rd at 8:00 p.m. Eastern only on CNN. I like what that last woman said that when we get to a point where we'll just say the latest Supreme Court nominee or the latest candidate for president with no racial or gender identification, that's a -- that would be a good place to be.</s>COSTELLO: And when we can talk about women politicians in general without the gender thing hanging out there.</s>ROBERTS: Yes.</s>COSTELLO: Because, you know, when Hillary Clinton ran for president, there are a lot of horrible things said about her, as well as Sarah Palin.</s>ROBERTS: Yes. It will be -- it will be a good day when we get to that point, won't it?</s>COSTELLO: It would.</s>ROBERTS: Maybe a little away off that. It's 54 minutes, almost 55 minutes after the hour. The latest on the hotel bombings live from Jakarta coming up next on the Most News in the Morning. Stay right with us.