For those of us who don’t follow closely the political and judicial battles over affirmative action, the import of the latest Supreme Court decision, in Schuette vs. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action By Any Means Necessary, may be unclear. The decision upheld Michigan’s ban on racial preferences in public university admissions as well as government employment and contracting.

In an article today, Roger Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, places the case in the context of Americans’ changing views about race and racial identity. He writes:

Racial preferences have never been popular among most Americans, and in fact they are becoming less and less popular.
One reason is the simple passage of time. Many people felt viscerally that some sort of affirmative action made sense 50 or 60 years ago, when Jim Crow had been the law until quite recently and the beneficiaries of preferences would be individuals who had actually been the victims of ugly and overt discrimination. Now, however, university admissions preferences go to kids who were born in 1996 and who live in a country with an African-American president.

Schuette is one more sign of the recognition that racial preferences are out of date.