Beltway Books: Beyond the soundbites

Four works explore today's political issues from the inside out | Doug Bandow

With an initiative to end affirmative action on the California ballot, racial quotas may become one of this year's hottest issues. In Ending Affirmative Action: The Case for Colorblind Justice, Terry Eastland, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, demonstrates how affirmative action, whatever its original purpose, now "makes a virtue of race, ethnicity, and sex in order to determine who gets an opportunity and who does not. To call it by its proper name, it is discrimination."

Mr. Eastland begins his fine book by listing some of the victims: The Memphis, Tenn., cop who found that black counterparts were always added to the promotion list above him; the woman refused admission to the University of Texas law school to make way for lower-ranked minority applicants; the Colorado Springs, Colo., construction company denied state business because its owner was a white male; the Piscataway, N.J., teacher fired because she was white when the high school had to lay off a teacher. These are the "gallant foot soldiers in the fight against a policy that by allocating opportunity on the basis of race and sex is dividing and damaging the nation," writes Mr. Eastland. There is much more in Ending Affirmative Action, but his most important point is that America's growing racial spoils system is unjust. Only colorblind law "respects the equal rights of all persons, all individuals," he observes.