… the false theory of progress, which maintains that we alter the test instead of trying to pass the test.
—G. K. Chesterton

Last month, the Bush administration announced that it was filing legal briefs to challenge the University of Michigan’s policy of using race as a factor in deciding who gets admitted to its undergraduate program and its law school. President Bush described Michigan’s policy as a disguised quota system which violated the Constitutional right to equal protection.

Predictably, the administration’s initiative sparked an orgy of hand-wringing in the liberal establishment. “The Bush administration sacrificed truth for political gain” and sought to “appease its right-wing supporters,” thundered an editorial in The New York Times. “The administration should start leveling with the American people about race, and it should stop trying to turn back the clock.” ...

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