Counterintuitive Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell has a sharp analysis of the Michigan affirmative action case that stands the conventional wisdom on its head. "The Bush memos are the most important substantive defense of affirmative action ever issued by a sitting president," he argues. "If the Court accepts the president's reasoning, it will have rescued affirmative action from what appeared to be a terminal constitutional illogic. More than that—it will have secured for this rickety program an indefinite constitutional legitimacy."