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4.2.12 WC: 191694 PART IV: THE NEVERENDING QUEST FOR EQUALITY AND JUSTICE Chapter 16: The Changing Face of Race: From Color Blindness to Race-Specific Remedies When I was growing in the pre-Brown versus Board of Education era of legally mandated segregation, the goal of all decent people is the same: color blindness. As Martin Luther King was to put it so eloquently several years later: “T have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” We all shared that dream of a color blind America, where success would be based on merit, not race, religion, gender, national origin, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation (this came a bit later) or any other irrelevant or invidious characteristic. Our idol was Jackie Robinson, who by his skill, speed, grace and character broke down the color barrier and became the best player on our beloved Brooklyn Dodgers, leading his team to several pennants and its sole World Series championship (only to be unceremoniously traded to the hated Giants at the end of his career, a trade Robinson rejected by retiring with dignity). At college my hero was Professor John Hope Franklin, the first African American to chair an academic department at a college that had not been historically Black. At law school, two of my classmates were African-American twins, one of whom went on to become a judge on New York’s highest court, the other of whom became a professor. All that these heroes needed in order to achieve great success was the elimination of racial barriers — color-blindness. That had also been the case for Jews: as soon as religious barriers were dropped, Jews raced to the top of the legal, medical and academic professions. I believed that the same would be true of all victims of racial and other forms of discrimination. I really believed that all men and women were created equal. All they needed was equal opportunity and equal access to achieve equal outcomes. I believed it because I saw it with my own eyes—at least with regard to my heroes. I participated in the civil rights movement in order to help to bring about racial equality — to make Martin Luther King’s dream a reality. During the 1950s and 1960s, there was little talk of race-specific affirmative action — of having positive, rather than negative, decisions based on the race of the person. It was enough, we believed, to eliminate race from decision making. The result, we believed, would be equal opportunity and success, as it had been for Jackie Robinson, John Hope Franklin, and my law school classmates. 290 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017377