In our alleged­ly post-racial soci­ety, the future of affir­ma­tive action is look­ing bleak. In Feb­ru­ary, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a law­suit brought by Abi­gail Fish­er, a white stu­dent who, after she was reject­ed from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas, charged that the school had vio­lat­ed her Con­sti­tu­tion­al right to equal pro­tec­tion through its use of race as a fac­tor in admis­sions. Argu­ments begin Octo­ber 1.

"One way we can get universities to focus on the broader issue of class inequality is to take away the option of simply admitting wealthy and middle-class students of color."

Though the issue has long been a light­ning rod for the Right, pro­gres­sives are often divid­ed over whether to ral­ly behind race-based affir­ma­tive action or to push for alter­na­tives that aim more direct­ly at class inequal­i­ty. As the Court pre­pared to hear the land­mark case, In These Times gath­ered Don­na Stern, nation­al coor­di­na­tor for By Any Means Nec­es­sary (BAMN), Richard Kahlen­berg, a senior fel­low at the Cen­tu­ry Foun­da­tion, and Stephen Stein­berg, an urban stud­ies pro­fes­sor at Queens Col­lege, to dis­cuss the his­to­ry of and prospects for affir­ma­tive action as a strat­e­gy for racial and eco­nom­ic justice.

The Supreme Court is set to hear Fish­er v. Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas this Octo­ber. What’s at stake in this case?

Stephen: This case is going to deter­mine the fate of diver­si­ty in high­er edu­ca­tion — there’s no doubt about that. But the pur­pose and log­ic of affir­ma­tive action — which was orig­i­nal­ly about rec­ti­fy­ing occu­pa­tion­al apartheid — has already been watered down to a focus on diver­si­ty for diversity’s sake. So this is real­ly the last rem­nant of affir­ma­tive action, which has been evis­cer­at­ed by the courts since the 1980s. What’s at stake is whether the Court is going to pound the last nail into the coffin.

Don­na: BAMN believes that affir­ma­tive action is the deseg­re­ga­tion plan for high­er edu­ca­tion. What we’re fight­ing for is not just diver­si­ty, but inte­gra­tion. With­out race-based affir­ma­tive action, you will have a return of legal­ized Jim Crow through admis­sions cri­te­ria that give pref­er­ence to white peo­ple from priv­i­leged backgrounds.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas also has an affir­ma­tive action plan that guar­an­tees admis­sion to stu­dents who ranked in the top 10 per­cent of their high school class­es. The law­suit doesn’t chal­lenge this plan, but could this plan be affect­ed by the Supreme Court’s decision?

Don­na: The fight in Fish­er is just the tip of the ice­berg — next we’re cer­tain­ly going to see a fight over whether or not the 10 per­cent is legal. And we think it’s impor­tant to defend this plan along­side race-based affir­ma­tive action, because the 10 per­cent plan is the most egal­i­tar­i­an and trans­par­ent admis­sions process of any selec­tive uni­ver­si­ty in the nation. Togeth­er, the com­bined admis­sions pro­gram unites poor, rur­al white peo­ple from East Texas with Lati­nos and blacks.

Richard: And I’m dis­ap­point­ed that some on the Left are attack­ing the 10 per­cent plan in order to defend race-based affir­ma­tive action. I think that all the focus on race diverts atten­tion from broad­er eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ties, at selec­tive uni­ver­si­ties in par­tic­u­lar. The Uni­ver­si­ty of North Car­oli­na said in an ami­cus brief that it would be a dis­as­ter if they had to admit the top 10 per­cent in the state because their aver­age stu­dent SAT would drop a mere 55 points, which is just sil­ly. One way we can get uni­ver­si­ties to focus on the broad­er issue of class inequal­i­ty is to take away the option of sim­ply admit­ting wealthy and mid­dle-class stu­dents of color.

Many pro­gres­sives, going back to Bayard Rustin, have opposed race-based affir­ma­tive action poli­cies on the grounds that they frac­ture alliances between blacks and work­ing-class whites. Could affir­ma­tive action based on socioe­co­nom­ic class pro­vide the basis for a stronger coali­tion for eco­nom­ic justice?

Don­na: While we’d like to see oth­er uni­ver­si­ties adopt 10-per­cent plans, class-based affir­ma­tive action is not a sub­sti­tute for race-based affir­ma­tive action.

Richard: It’s hard to imag­ine a bet­ter way to divide work­ing-class peo­ple than a pro­gram that tells work­ing- class whites, ​“An afflu­ent per­son of col­or can ben­e­fit from this pro­gram, but you can­not.” This encour­ages white work­ing-class peo­ple to vote for their race and not their class, which is dis­as­trous. Class-based affir­ma­tive action can still increase minor­i­ty enroll­ment and address indi­rect­ly our his­to­ry of dis­crim­i­na­tion, but in a way that Amer­i­cans can accept and the Supreme Court can accept.

Stephen: There is no doubt that affir­ma­tive action is divi­sive to the con­stituen­cies of the Left. It’s tempt­ing, there­fore, to side­step the whole issue by propos­ing class-based affir­ma­tive action. But should we capit­u­late to white apa­thy and intran­si­gence, and their out­right hos­til­i­ty to affir­ma­tive action? Frankly, I see the class-based argu­ment as a polit­i­cal­ly respectable diver­sion from con­fronting insti­tu­tion­al racism, past and present.

Richard: The incep­tion of affir­ma­tive action was the Philadel­phia Plan, which imposed racial quo­tas on the con­struc­tion indus­try in 1969. Mem­bers of the Nixon admin­is­tra­tion have explic­it­ly said the Plan was a way to divide work­ing class whites and blacks — and it worked brilliantly.

Stephen: I think affir­ma­tive action had a more com­pli­cat­ed start­ing point; it was Nixon’s attempt to appease the civ­il rights move­ment at a time when he was wag­ing war in Viet­nam. And it’s very impor­tant to remem­ber that the Philadel­phia Plan grew out of grass­roots activism and protests at con­struc­tion sites.

Today, there is no sim­i­lar move­ment that is push­ing for class-based affir­ma­tive action. It is not real­ly on the table as a pol­i­cy alter­na­tive. Instead, I think the class-based argu­ment orig­i­nat­ed as a rhetor­i­cal foil to trump the race card with the class card.

Some have also argued that affir­ma­tive action in high­er edu­ca­tion has side­lined oth­er issues impact­ing poor black and His­pan­ic com­mu­ni­ties. Should defend­ing affir­ma­tive action con­tin­ue to be the main focus of racial jus­tice movements?

Don­na: I’m wary of argu­ments that we should be putting all of our ener­gy into issues such as rates of incar­cer­a­tion, as opposed to edu­ca­tion. Rates of incar­cer­a­tion and edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties are direct­ly cor­re­lat­ed. And our con­cern is rebuild­ing the civ­il rights move­ment, and the lead­er­ship that we need is most like­ly to come from high school and col­lege cam­pus­es. Fight­ing for affir­ma­tive action and defend­ing pub­lic edu­ca­tion from pri­va­ti­za­tion are key to rebuild­ing a mass move­ment that can advance pro­gres­sive policies.

Stephen: We have to fight on all fronts, but we also have to acknowl­edge the lim­its of what has dom­i­nat­ed the dis­course around affir­ma­tive action: who gets into the elite col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties. This is the wrong ques­tion — it’s clas­sist in its essence. His­tor­i­cal­ly, affir­ma­tive action has been impor­tant in deseg­re­gat­ing not just white-col­lar job sec­tors, but blue-col­lar indus­tries as well.

Richard: But it does mat­ter who goes to selec­tive insti­tu­tions. Our lead­er­ship class is dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly derived from them. The issue is huge­ly sym­bol­ic to peo­ple. It has to do with who’s going to get ahead in soci­ety, who’s going to enjoy the Amer­i­can dream, and that’s why this issue of racial pref­er­ences can be so divisive.

How will the issue of affir­ma­tive action play out in this year’s elections?

Richard: Oba­ma missed a huge oppor­tu­ni­ty here. He has had a very nuanced posi­tion on affir­ma­tive action, say­ing that his own priv­i­leged daugh­ters do not deserve it. And yet, in the brief filed with the Supreme Court, the Jus­tice Depart­ment took a very tra­di­tion­al, race-based posi­tion. Almost all observers of the Supreme Court think that affir­ma­tive action is going to lose in this case. The pres­i­dent may take a real polit­i­cal hit for some­thing that was going to lose anyway.

Don­na: That said, BAMN has got­ten very lit­tle sup­port from the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion for pre­vi­ous chal­lenges in Michi­gan and Cal­i­for­nia. This has been very con­sis­tent with the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party’s retreat to a white pop­ulist posi­tion that refus­es to weigh in specif­i­cal­ly on issues of racism. This is very dan­ger­ous because the fight for civ­il rights bet­ters the sit­u­a­tion of poor white peo­ple as well — his­tor­i­cal­ly, the strug­gles against slav­ery and for free­dom and democ­ra­cy are intertwined.

There has been rel­a­tive­ly lit­tle noise from the Left around this case. How can a broad­er coali­tion be rebuilt around this issue?

Richard: Mar­tin Luther King Jr., when he wres­tled with the ques­tion of how to rem­e­dy the lega­cy of slav­ery and seg­re­ga­tion, said that there should be a Bill of Rights for the dis­ad­van­taged, includ­ing poor whites. We have the oppor­tu­ni­ty today to come out in favor of the King position.

Don­na: Affir­ma­tive action was won through the civ­il rights move­ment and through the unit­ed action of stu­dents, like those from the Black Action Move­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan. I think that we will only make fur­ther progress if white stu­dents and white work­ers are pre­pared to fight not only for the com­mon eco­nom­ic demands that affect peo­ple from all races, but also for poli­cies that will coun­ter­act racism.

Stephen: I’m will­ing to march with BAMN — even if the fight over high­er edu­ca­tion is lim­it­ed. It’s all we have at the moment. We’re in a posi­tion today where there’s not only endur­ing but deep­en­ing inequal­i­ty between blacks and every­one else, and that com­pels us as pro­gres­sives to launch a frontal assault on these inequal­i­ties. We need to con­front race as race, and to con­vince oth­ers to ral­ly to that banner.