Affirmative Action

Baltimore fire Chief William J. Goodwin Jr. pledged yesterday that the department would "never again" hire an all-white recruiting class. Responding to an article in The Sun disclosing recruiting troubles that led to a class with no minorities for the first time since the department integrated 50 years ago, Goodwin promised to use affirmative action more aggressively in hiring future firefighters. "This means a class will never again be racially exclusive," Goodwin said in an interview at his office at fire headquarters.

IF FOLKS have the notion that likely Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry will take the black vote for granted, they had better think again. Kerry met Wednesday with five black journalists at his campaign headquarters in the McPherson Building in northwest Washington. Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page was there, as was syndicated columnist Deborah Mathis. Richard Prince, who writes the column "Richard Prince's Journal-isms" for the Maynard Institute for Journalism Studies Web site, attended, as did George Curry, a syndicated columnist and editor in chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service and BlackPressUSA.

REMEMBER, Sun readers, the common link in all these incidents is the money - as in "We put it up and politicians mess it up." For the last 10 days, we Balti-morons and Marylanders in general have noted these articles in the news media: Our city government went to great lengths to help B&B Lighting Supply Inc., a minority firm, win a $1.1 million contract over several other firms. In recent years, the city had funneled light bulb purchases to B&B - even though it didn't have the contract - and paid far higher prices than the then-contract holder, a white-owned firm, was charging.

OF THE MANY reasons to admire Peter Agre of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, let's begin with this one: Dr. Agre has long been a proponent of the idea that you can be a successful scientist and have a fulfilling family life at the same time. He's an active father of four who lives in Stoneleigh, with a day job in East Baltimore. He's self-effacing, popular among his colleagues, and, oh yes, he's one of two winners of the 2003 Nobel Prize for chemistry. Dr. Agre first appeared in The Sun in 1995 with a letter to the editor praising the performance of Mandy Patinkin in Evita, and going on to commend the actor for his decision to take a break from a television series in which he was appearing to spend more time with his family.

DETROIT - The University of Michigan has passed its written test. So say legal experts who reviewed the university's revised undergraduate admissions policy, unveiled yesterday. The policy replaces a numerical system the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in June because it automatically awarded extra points to underrepresented minority applicants. But critics of race-conscious admissions say they remain skeptical that the University of Michigan will do what it says - not elevate race above other factors in admissions.

THANKFULLY, COMMON sense and mainstream values prevailed in the Supreme Court. On issues of enormous social importance - most notably decriminalizing the lives of millions of gay Americans and protecting affirmative action in higher education - the court recognized that our nation's commitment to fundamental equality for all Americans cannot, and will not, be turned back. In doing so, the court confirmed how plainly out of touch social conservatives are with the way most Americans lead their lives.

BOSTON - As someone who makes a living telling people what she thinks, I am aware that opinion-mongering is a dicey business. Even the dictionary offers this slippery definition: "a belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof." Of course, it's a problem if you're discussing cilantro or the Red Sox. It's more unsettling when you're talking about the law. So when the Supreme Court ended with a bang, it left some queasiness behind. In the affirmative action case especially, there's been a good deal of conversation about the gap between Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas.

The Supreme Court's rulings last week upholding racial preferences in higher education are being hailed as the clearest endorsement of affirmative action in a generation. But they may also have been something less exalted: a grudging nod to the realities of college admissions. In its 5-4 opinion approving race-conscious admissions at the University of Michigan School of Law, the court ruled that colleges can consider race as an admissions factor to achieve campus diversity -- as long as they consider minority status as just one element in an individualized, "holistic" assessment of each candidate, rather than as part of a formula.

THE WAY Elaine R. Jones sees it, people of color have spent the past 25 years fighting to preserve affirmative action. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of diversity-enhancing programs in higher education, Ms. Jones, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, would like folks to finally move ahead: "The Supreme Court has spoken clearly." Not clearly enough for some, however. Opponents of affirmative action quickly responded to last week's landmark decision with talk of follow-up lawsuits and ballot initiatives to ban race-conscious decisions in education, employment and elsewhere.

WASHINGTON - Race matters. Boil it down, and that's what the milestone Supreme Court rulings in the University of Michigan case reduce to, an acknowledgement of the obvious. Not that the rulings were one-sided. As you surely know by now, justices struck down a formula that awarded a certain number of points toward undergraduate admission to applicants based upon race. But at the same time, and to the relief of affirmative action advocates, the court affirmed that race can be taken into account in college admissions.