To the Editor:

Re “A One-Man Legal Factory Fights Harvard Over Affirmative Action” (front page, Nov. 20):

Edward Blum, the subject of your article, has spent his career trying to destroy the critical civil rights gains accomplished over the last 50 years. These measures were adopted to combat centuries of racial preferences for white people.

White people continue to benefit from structural inequities in K-12 education and in university admissions, and from voter suppression laws unleashed after the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder that federal courts have repeatedly found to intentionally discriminate against African-Americans and Latinos in the last several years.

Now more than ever, the Voting Rights Act and affirmative action in higher education are needed to begin to remedy these racial preferences for whites.

SHERRILYN IFILL, NEW YORK

The writer is president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.