Affirmative Action and Diversity Don't Mix

California Democrats are in a state of shock that that Asian Americans – who voted for Obama at rates comparable to those of blacks – handed a resounding defeat to the proposal to reinstate racial preferences in California universities. The state Senate had approved 27-9 a measure to scrap Prop 209 for the November ballot. But Asian Americans, who apparently didn't get the party memo that they should abandon their spots in top universities to further liberal diversity goals, went into high-gear to oppose the measure, causing the Assembly to scuttle it and three state senators to withdraw their support.

But this is only the taste of things to come for affirmative action Democrats, I note in my Washington Examiner column this morning:

Trying to perform a racial balancing act in a country that was neatly divided into two groups — the white discriminators and the black discriminated — was one thing. But pulling it off in a diverse country with diverse groups with diverse histories and diverse interests is quite another. Foisting preferences on a diverse America will pit various groups against each other — as well as against Democrats, as the fight in California amply demonstrates. Diversity and racial preferences are directly antithetical — contrary to liberal orthodoxy.

Diversity and racial preferences don't mix.

Go here to read the whole thing.