Affirmatively active

The choice was reduced to one dimension: Either America treats everyone fairly or it doesn't.

"Vote YES . . . if you are sick and tired of handouts and unfair quotas," one blogger advised. On Election Day, 58 percent voted yes.

Then Ward Connerly showed up. A former University of California regent and an African-American, he led a successful fight to end affirmative action in California. He supported Proposal 2 in Michigan. And last month, he said he would be visiting nine other states -- Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Utah -- to consider launching similar campaigns.

But Proposal 2 is less a victory for fairness and more of a vote for inequality. Rather than helping students who need it most , the public system can merely shrug at the consequences of racism.

Given the list of things that the law school considers, it is odd not to include race as one of many factors, especially since the country is still struggling to have integrated schools and communities.

Wayne State law professor Jonathan Weinberg, who drafted the new policy, says it's a formal version of the school's old policy, minus race. The new policy is unlikely to maintain racial diversity: Weinberg predicts that the law school's minority enrollment, currently at 17 percent, will drop "substantially."

When asked about it, Weinberg says there's "a legitimate concern" that asking applicants about overcoming obstacles could foster an atmosphere of victimization. But he says it's a risk worth taking, so that the law school can have the information and take a holistic look at all its candidates and try to admit "a class that's diverse in the broadest sense."

Ideally, the nation's public schools should be havens where discrimination and poverty are overcome by hard academic work. But many public schools are dragging along, starved for books, anemic from high drop out rates, and struggling to boost students to grade-level achievement.

Given these severe K-12 failings, higher education has responded by using affirmative action and other tools to create opportunity.

"Universities have to push the envelope," Joseph Aoun, the new president of Northeastern University, recently told Globe editors and writers. "You need in your action to be a microcosm of what society can do."

Aoun speaks proudly of his school's Torch scholars. This year, they are 11 students who have faced hard times and don't have the grades and scores to get into Northeastern in the usual manner. But they have shown success in some areas of life, and Northeastern is betting that with the right support, these students can thrive.

It's an American gamble on the underdog, an investment in the national idea that people can spin ambition into prosperity no matter where they come from. The nation's history and morality stand on this base.

And so, increasingly, does its wallet. Diversity in higher education is no longer a nicety. It's an economic necessity. America's workforce has to compete with highly educated workers in India, Singapore, and China. On this international stage, banning affirmative action is an unfortunate sideshow, a misstep just when the country should be pushing everyone, including underrepresented minorities, to go to college.

"Think college isn't for you? Think again." says a smart, new web site, readysetgotocollege.com. It's part of a new multi media campaign sponsored by Massachusetts' Department of Education and Board of Higher Education. It includes a television spot that features minority students.

It's a new era. To thrive, the country has to put opportunity where it isn't.