Supreme Court Bids Goodbye to Affirmative Action. What Comes Next?
Years ago, in a small gathering of friends, we talked about what mattered most to us in the upcoming 2008 presidential election. One friend wished for marriage equality (this was prior to its enactment). Another selected consciousness, meaning deep awareness of the interconnectedness of all things. I chose the Supreme Court. My intense focus on the Supreme Court feels prophetic to me, with the current dismantling of Roe vs. Wade, retrenchment on student debt relief, and now, to my profound sorrow, the end of affirmative action.
Why was I so focused then and now on the Supreme Court? For as long as I can remember, my family and community counted on the federal government to liberate us. The segregated southern state (Tennessee) in which we lived legislated in the opposite direction, so we looked to the federal government, and especially the Supreme Court, to fulfill its promise to itself and implicitly to us as citizens.
My father was a great respecter of the law and especially the US Constitution as written, despite being savvy that any law as enacted might not measure up. And so, year after year, starting after World War II, my parents’ generation and then mine celebrated each successive court victory dismantling segregated practices.
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