After all, each of us has had a door or two slammed in our face from time to time. In my case, sometimes it has been slammed because of race, but sometimes it has been in the interest of another kind of diversity. I was "too liberal" for a newspaper editor or I was excluded from conference participation because there were already "too many economists." My conservative colleagues who rant against affirmative action forget that it works for them. I don't know how often I'm told that media bookers are looking for "more" Black conservatives, choosing scantly published conservative pundits in favor of more experienced liberals in the name of balance and diversity.

When knocked out of opportunities in the name of diversity, it's best to swallow disappointment by recognizing the fact that it's not just individual qualifications but a mix that often matters when people put together a panel, compose an editorial page, organize an academic class.

I don't know the University of Michigan plaintiffs, but I find their sense of fairness overly individual and oddly defined. The University of Michigan is committed to inclusion. To turn admissions officers into automatons, to inhibit their ability to compose a class taking a range of factors into consideration, seems far more divisive than affirmative action guidelines. Furthermore, to acknowledge diversity for every category but race seems an amusing and pernicious form of racism. The Supreme Court would do well to remember Bakke and find the University of Michigan plan constitutional. And the whiners whose knowledge of history is so limited might be advised that their behavior clearly illustrates that knowledge and life skills are obviously not measured by SAT scores.