The Supreme Court has decided to hear a case against the University of Michigan's two-tier system for applicants. While many have taken issue with the school's formula to create diversity among its student body, there lies a much larger problem inherent with this debate. It is the problem of race.

Nonetheless, race stopped mattering the year that people were allowed to self-identify. That plausibly means that a "white" person could be "black" and a "black" person could be "white" and what could you do? Say they were lying? Obviously there is some deviation to this when it comes to family history, and programs at the state level enforce it through birth certificates and the like.

Racial classifications are the most divisive and perverse legacies of our nation's history. Where else are their separate categories for two people, from the same nation, born of parents who are citizens because of a difference in skin color? It's ridiculous, arbitrary and has no bearing on our social progress.

Some say, "We have a legacy of racism and ignoring race doesn't make it go away." I would agree that discrimination is rampant. But there are millions of ignorant people who discount race altogether or are too busy living their own lives to care. The federal government has no place in sanctioning what has amounted to a social caste system.

If private industry and other institutions including states want to do so, that's their business. But the federal government should say "we believe Americans are just that." Race has poisoned the American ideal for too long. The fact is, all race does is allow people to make generalizations or stereotypes.

Politicians always associate key words like "poverty", "urban" and such with blacks or other minorities. Senator Trent Lott did this in his speech (Dec. 14, 2002 -- Pascagoula, MS), which was meant to be his "repentance" broadcast on national television. He talked of equality "for all people." But instead of giving constructive solutions, he instead used phrases like "a hand up and not a hand out." I found this gaffe to be much worse than anything he said about Strom Thurmond, whether it was once or one hundred times. He was using racial "doublespeak" to appease his white, conservative constituents while trying to seem concerned enough about minorities that the media would leave him alone.

Special interests use race in even more stealthy ways than before and often times with minority help. By recognizing, even embracing and celebrating "race" (rather than heritage, which is distinctly different) you allow minorities to banter about saying that their groups are more important. It pits them against each other.

Better still, it keeps poor whites on the white side who otherwise might be persuaded to the causes of a uniting force. Just like was done in the South in the days of Jim Crow. The only difference between poor white and poor black schools, was the poor white students were told "you're better than them," when that might not have been the case. Surely it kept them from mingling and allowed them to be "associate members" in a club of superiors.

Affirmative action is a mechanism by which minorities can be fairly assured that the uglier days of history concerning race can be remedied. Does this mean the sanction of lowering standards? Certainly not, because it is of no benefit to anyone involved. Even if the graduation rates of black students are the same as those of their white counterparts, it is very difficult for people to have to accept others as their equals when for all intent and purpose, they are not equal.

That being said, I see nothing wrong with the concept of providing "affirmative access," by targeting recruiting of qualified candidates and identifying potentials as early in the process as possible. This is due to the fact that many institutions -- especially in academia -- have failed to make progressive efforts to diversify or, more specifically, address the needs of the minority students they seem to intent on getting. Getting these students is one thing; graduating them is a bigger issue. Even if it requires being creative, more must be done.

Throughout history, marginalized people have found a way to succeed in the midst of seemingly insurmountable odds. Affirmative action eliminates the instinct that drives you to outshine anyone and everyone, by giving the perception -- whether it is justified or otherwise -- that past "injustices" warrant discriminating against others who might be qualified to "remedy" the past.

Race has seen its day come and go. While I understand the historical issues associated with race will never be erased, we do ourselves no favor by continuing to identify citizens of the same country with different and very arbitrary classifications. Even if it means society will continue to pay attention to some form of "race," the government has no place in legitimizing the existence of our own de facto caste system.

Presently, he is a student at Monmouth College in Illinois majoring in Economics with double minors in Philosophy/Religious Studies and Political Science. After graduation he intends to pursue his PhD in Public Policy. He was recently named a Dow Jones News Fund Summer Intern. He will spend the Summer of 2003 working for the Boston Globe.

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