SLEEPER HOLD

Negatives vs. Affirmatives: Countermeasures against racism have gone too far for much too long. (Jim Sleeper, June 24, 2003, LA Times)

The court has diverted us all from two basic truths. For conservatives, the more important one is that damage caused by racism is severe enough to require transitional but daring public investments in early child-rearing and primary education. That kind of heavy lifting requires civic unity. Enforcing diversity in the military, which conservatives defend, works only because generals can order soldiers to remedy their deficiencies, on the taxpayer's dime.

But for liberals, the important truth is that some racist damage can be repaired only by the damaged themselves, with clear moral signals from a cohesive and, yes, demanding society. That's a different kind of heavy lifting. To shirk it is to discount the dignity of racism's victims. When low expectations demoralize and demobilize the poor, conservatives have an excuse for providing virtually no public investments at all.

The court should have forced us back to basics. Instead, its diversity rationale delays introducing the only D-words that should matter in American education and public life: daring and dignity.

Mr. Sleeper is interesting chiefly as a case study in how certain ex-liberals find it difficult or even impossible to follow where their observations lead. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 26, 2003 6:22 PM