The thousands who rallied in the U.S. capital set an example of how to defend this important gain. More such mobilizations are needed. Equally important is the need to vigorously join the debate and patiently explain why affirmative action is vital for the working class.

Affirmative action, now under attack in two cases before the Supreme Court involving the University of Michigan admissions policy, is not about "diversity." Nor is it about rectifying the discrimination of yesterday. It is a weapon in the struggle against racist and sex discrimination today. It is a class question--part of the fight to strengthen the working class as a whole.

Opponents of affirmative action argue for "race-neutral" admissions. There is no such thing. University officials have long used all kinds of special preferences in admitting students. Students whose parents have special connections with the administration, for example, or whose relatives have attended the college, are given the inside track. The same is true for those who went to high schools offering advanced-placement classes. A higher proportion of children from the wealthy classes attend these schools. Far from being "race-neutral," such formal and informal selection schemes, operating day-in and day-out as an integral part of the lawful workings of the market system, perpetuate the racist status quo. That is one reason affirmative action is needed today.

Despite what U.S. president George Bush argues in supporting the challenge to the University of Michigan policies, segregation is not a thing of the past. A recent study by Harvard University’s Civil Rights Project shows that despite gains won through the civil rights battles, Black and Latino students face more school segregation today than they did in 1970. They are subjected to second-class educational facilities such as greater school overcrowding and lack of textbooks and other resources.

Racist discrimination is institutionalized in every aspect of capitalist society, which constantly reproduces and reinforces inequalities. In the economy, for example, it’s not affirmative action that "divides," or promotes "reverse discrimination," as its opponents assert. It is the capitalists who divide. They are the ones who benefit from maintaining Blacks and other oppressed nationalities, as well as women, in a second-class status. Bosses profit from paying them less and keeping workers pitted against each other. Many workers today are better able to grasp aspects of the political economy of discrimination--that discrimination does not mean an extra buck for some workers at the expense of women, Blacks, Puerto Ricans, or other immigrants; instead, it drags the whole class down in terms of real wages and job conditions, and saps our collective capacity to fight against the bosses. Look at what has happened in the meatpacking industry, for example, over the last 20 years. Discrimination against Latinos and other immigrant workers, who now predominate in much of the workforce, has been central to the bosses’s ability to slash average wages for all meat packers nationwide.

Affirmative action is under attack both by its avowed enemies and by capitalist politicians seeking to gut it with the argument, "mend it, don’t end it." These are code words coined by former president William Clinton. In plain English, they mean: oppose quotas.

The employers, landlords, or school authorities have never, and will never, take the necessary measures to fix racist and sexist inequalities out of the kindness of their hearts. They had to be forced to take action in the past, and must be forced to do so now. That’s why the only way to enforce affirmative action is through quotas. Without quotas such programs are toothless.

Like all other social gains, affirmative action was not a gift from liberal politicians--from John F. Kennedy to Lyndon Johnson. It was fought for and won by a mass proletarian movement in the titanic battles of the civil rights revolution. Over the past three decades, workers, farmers, and students have continued to resist attempts to undermine it. No matter how much they hate it, the employers and their government can’t simply take affirmative action away without a fight

Along with union battles, like the strike by meat packers at Tyson Foods in Wisconsin, the April 1 march provides confirmation that many working people are not willing to subordinate their struggles to "homeland defense" or "national unity." This is the beginning of resistance to imperialism and its wars by the working class. A class that faces a war at home as the wealthy rulers prosecute their war against our brothers and sisters in the Middle East. That’s why defending affirmative action is, objectively, part of the fight to end the system of imperialism once and for all.
 
 
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75,000 march in Washington, D.C., in defense of affirmative action  
 
 
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