ROBBINS: Pride and Preferences - Washington Times
The U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts is providing America with a teachable moment about affirmative action. Republican Sen. Scott P. Brown’s campaign has accused Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren of promoting her academic career by unfairly claiming American Indian ethnicity based on a remote 19th-century family link. After some delay, the Warren campaign confirmed that she listed herself as a Native American while at Harvard University. Faculty directories published by the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) also list Mrs. Warren as a minority faculty member at her previous academic posts. Universities where she worked all claim affirmative action played no role in her hiring, but the public can be justly skeptical. Higher education has long been the most committed bastion for the defense of race-based hiring preferences.
The debate over whether or how Mrs. Warren benefited from affirmative action highlights the contradictions of multiculturalism. Affirmative action forces people into racial and ethnic boxes, and some are more rewarding than others.
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