Are We Getting Closer to a Color-Blind Society?

An interesting article appeared in the January 30 edition of the Denver Post featuring four University of Maryland students. All of the four were "mixed-race." The fascinating part of the article was that all four of the featured students were rejecting being labeled as part of a particular "race," and the article suggested that the percentage of the American population that can be characterized as "mixed-race" would continue to grow.

The students clearly understood that "racial" classifications are inherently divisive. In a concluding quote, one of the students observed: "All society is trying to tear you apart and make you pick a side." Another student (a person the article characterized as "Greek and black") had an interesting observation about how our President should be characterized and the racial identity that relates to the way in which people view him. She noted that "[s]omeone said, 'Stop taking away our black president.' I didn't understand where they were coming from, and they didn't understand me." In other words, for some, it is critically important that President Obama be viewed as a "black" President ("don't take that away"). For the Maryland student (and, per the article, more and more like her), the label "black" was simply not important.

The term "race" is in fact a much more ephemeral concept than popularly understood. In a 1987 Supreme Court opinion on the subject (Saint Francis College v. Al-Kharaji), Justice White, writing for a unanimous Court, held that discrimination against an Arab could give rise to a civil-rights discrimination claim. In so holding, however, he canvassed the scientific literature on the subject of "race" and noted that "[t]hese observations and others have led some, but not all, scientists to conclude that racial classifications are for the most part sociopolitical, rather than biological, in nature." The Court held that an Arab could bring a civil rights claim not based upon the science of being a member of the Arab "race," but rather on the fact that being an Arab was sufficiently "racial" as understood by the legislative history of the Civil War civil rights laws and the literature at the time of the Civil War.

The civil rights laws of the Civil War era, including the constitutional amendments of that time, the Thirteenth (prohibiting slavery), Fourteenth (guaranteeing full civil rights to all persons born or naturalized in the United States) and Fifteenth (prohibiting abridgement or denial of the right to vote on the basis of race) are grounded in rejection of slavery and the disenfranchisement of African-Americans. Any student of history understands the blatant and egregious racial discrimination that these laws were enacted to prohibit. Unfortunately, the civil rights laws are not obsolete, and, regrettably, as a society, we've not quite realized color-blindness. But are we getting closer?

The views of the University of Maryland students offer hope that perhaps, as a society, we are beginning to see a light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel. The latest generation engaged is a serious debate over affirmative action and racial preferences. This debate, however, was premised upon the continued existence of racial identity. The University of Maryland students evidence what may well be an important next (and perhaps final) chapter: elimination of the labels themselves.