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| The Truth Is, Many Americans Just Don’t Want Black People to Get Ahead | The Truth Is, Many Americans Just Don’t Want Black People to Get Ahead |
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| As we await a Supreme Court ruling that is likely to restrict, if not prohibit, crediting racial identity as a plus in competitions for selection to institutions of higher education, it is worth recalling a sobering feature of the racial history of the United States: Every major step undertaken to advance African Americans and to redress the consequences of racial subordination has been met with charges of “reverse discrimination” and unfair “preference.” | As we await a Supreme Court ruling that is likely to restrict, if not prohibit, crediting racial identity as a plus in competitions for selection to institutions of higher education, it is worth recalling a sobering feature of the racial history of the United States: Every major step undertaken to advance African Americans and to redress the consequences of racial subordination has been met with charges of “reverse discrimination” and unfair “preference.” |
| Allegations of immoral and unlawful discrimination propel the lawsuits pending against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina before the Supreme Court. Opponents of affirmative action assert that in attempting to aid African Americans and Latinos, elite institutions of higher education are mistreating white people and people of Asian ancestry. A baleful echo haunts this ongoing debate. | Allegations of immoral and unlawful discrimination propel the lawsuits pending against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina before the Supreme Court. Opponents of affirmative action assert that in attempting to aid African Americans and Latinos, elite institutions of higher education are mistreating white people and people of Asian ancestry. A baleful echo haunts this ongoing debate. |
| When abolitionists petitioned Congress to emancipate slaves, Senator John C. Calhoun objected, warning that “the next step would be to raise the Negroes to a social and political equality with whites; and that being effected, we would soon find the present condition of the two races reversed.” Black Americans would be masters and white people slaves. | When abolitionists petitioned Congress to emancipate slaves, Senator John C. Calhoun objected, warning that “the next step would be to raise the Negroes to a social and political equality with whites; and that being effected, we would soon find the present condition of the two races reversed.” Black Americans would be masters and white people slaves. |
| President Andrew Johnson vetoed the nation’s inaugural civil rights legislation because, in his view, it discriminated against white people and privileged Black people. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 (which Congress enacted over the veto) bestowed citizenship upon all persons — except for certain American Indians — born in the United States and endowed all persons with the same rights as white people in terms of issuing contracts, owning property, suing or being sued or serving as witnesses. This law was proposed because the Supreme Court had ruled in Dred Scott v. Sanford that African Americans, free or enslaved, were ineligible as a matter of race for federal citizenship, and because many states had barred African Americans from enjoying even the most rudimentary civil rights. | President Andrew Johnson vetoed the nation’s inaugural civil rights legislation because, in his view, it discriminated against white people and privileged Black people. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 (which Congress enacted over the veto) bestowed citizenship upon all persons — except for certain American Indians — born in the United States and endowed all persons with the same rights as white people in terms of issuing contracts, owning property, suing or being sued or serving as witnesses. This law was proposed because the Supreme Court had ruled in Dred Scott v. Sanford that African Americans, free or enslaved, were ineligible as a matter of race for federal citizenship, and because many states had barred African Americans from enjoying even the most rudimentary civil rights. |
| Johnson vetoed the act in part because the citizenship provision would immediately make citizens of native-born Black people while European-born immigrants had to wait several years to qualify for citizenship via naturalization (which was then open only to white people). According to Johnson, this amounted to “a discrimination against large numbers of intelligent, worthy and patriotic foreigners, and in favor of the Negro, to whom, after long years of bondage, the avenues to freedom and intelligence have just now been suddenly opened.” Johnson similarly opposed the provision in the act affording federal protection to civil rights, charging that it made possible “discriminating protection to colored persons.” | |
| A key defect of the Civil Rights Act, according to Johnson, was that it established “for the security of the colored race safeguards which go infinitely beyond any that the general government has ever provided for the white race. In fact, the distinction of race and color is by the bill made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race.” Johnson opposed as well the 14th Amendment, which decreed that states offer to all persons equal protection of the laws, a provision which he also saw as a wrongful venture in racial favoritism aimed at assisting the undeserving Negro. |