A sampling of Trotter Group members' commentary on the University of Michigan affirmative action cases.

Betty Baye, Louisville Courier-Journal
The path to wealth is hidden from those who have never known a guide: "While previewing ''This Far By Faith: African-American Spiritual Journeys,'' the six-hour PBS documentary that concludes tonight, a set of statistics jumped out at me. In the early 1900s, African Americans owned 15 million acres of land, primarily in the South. By the 1960s, black Ameri-cans owned just 6 million acres, and by the 1990s, less than 2.5 million acres. Read the column

Donna Britt, Washington Post
Diversity Benefits All Kinds: "In an article about college students demonstrating in support of the University of Michigan's embattled affirmative action plan, I noted a group that had traveled 200 miles from Hampton University in Virginia to the Supreme Court steps.Why would students from a venerable black institution journey to support a distant, 75 percent white university?" Read the column

George Curry, BlackPressUSA.com
Thomas Misrepresented Frederick Douglass: "Clarence Thomas has no shame. Not only does he attack the kind of affirmative action programs that got him admitted into Yale Law School, he even distorts a speech by Frederick Douglass in a feeble attempt to justify his unjustifiable behavior." Read the column

Joe Davidson, BET.com
Bush's Miscalculation on Affirmative Action Only One of Many Recent Missteps: "It was the Supreme Court that delivered the blow to conservatives, but it's the Bush White House that's taking the hit." Read the column

Wayne Dawkins, BlackJournalist.com
Don't believe the hype: Blair was rotten, but his training was not: "About a decade ago, there was no way that a Jayson Blair, or any young, inexperienced reporter, could write for The New York Times. Union rules and tradition were barriers, explained Paul Delaney, an African-American who was an editor and writer at the newspaper from 1969-92: “New York Times policy used to be not to hire out of college. In the old days, you had to prove yourself.” Read the column

Lolis Eric Elie, Times-Picayune
High court's memory is selective: "On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court issued rulings in two cases so similar that they might as well share one name: Memory v. Forgetting." Read the column

 
Derrick Z. Jackson, The Boston Globe
Mugging Frederick Douglass: "In his drive-by shootings of black progress, Clarence Thomas speeds away, spitting at his victims and spewing quotations that stun the onlookers as much as the original attack." Read the column

Eugene Kane, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Segregationists made ruling on affirmative action possible: "What a difference a week makes. Last Monday, we learned the U.S. Supreme Court had decided to allow America to continue repaying its social debt to blacks and other minorities locked out of opportunity for centuries. As the week closed, news came that two of the staunchest opponents of racial equality in our time - former Georgia Gov. Lester Maddox and Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina - had passed away." Read the column

Colbert I. King, The Washington Post
Truth From Justice Ginsburg: "This has been quite a week in America on the human progress front. The Supreme Court stood up for affirmative action and the right of gays to sexual privacy. And the sun quietly set on two of the most divisive figures in civil rights history." Read the column

Norm Lockman, Wilmington News Journal
Forgive truly colorblind for ignorance: "Now that the Supreme Court has put a stake into the heart of racial quota systems, beware of the dark spirits who continue to moan about unfairness of race consciousness in subjective decisions about choosing college applicants. They are the ghosts of segregation past. Some of them are even black, like Justice Clarence Thomas." Read the column

Sheryl McCarthy, Newsday
How Dare Justice Thomas Dissent on This One: "If Clarence Thomas really believes what he said about the University of Michigan case, we should expect his resignation by the end of the week." Read the column

Sherman N. Miller, freelance
Is Affirmative Action Tomorrow's Civil Rights Guarantee for White America? "The Black Talented Tenth and the White anti-affirmative action leadership are anxiously awaiting the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the University of Michigan case that will either spell life or death for affirmative action in the United States of America's mainstream psyche. But the real question is who will really win when the ruling comes?" Read the column

Courtland Milloy, Washington Post
Twisting Words In an Effort to Rewrite History: "Efforts by right-wingers to highjack the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. are bad enough. By conveniently forgetting every word King ever said except "colorblind," they pretend not to see white privilege and accuse blacks of "reverse racism" for daring to point it out. Read the column

Terry M. Neal, washingtonpost.com
Racial Politics Emerging as Major Issue for Bush: "In a handful of conversations that I had with George W. Bush during the 2000 campaign, he made it clear that his views on race were fairly progressive." Read the column

Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune
O'Connor splits the difference: "A reader recently let me know how affirmative action had hit him where he lives. His daughter, of whom he was justifiably proud, had been accepted for admission by four top-notch universities, but not by one: the University of Michigan, which is the subject of this week's landmark affirmative action ruling. Read the column

Les Payne, Newsday
Poetic Injustice: "If nothing else, the University of Michigan court decision should persuade Clarence Thomas not to quote Frederick Douglass. Like a gnat buzzing the mane of a great lion, the U.S. Supreme Court justice used the Great Liberator to breathe wisdom into his empty syllogisms." Read the column

David Person, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com
Affirmative Action, who's it really for?: "To me, affirmative action has never been about seeing myself as a victim. It’s always been about the resistance of white society to open its eyes and see competent blacks for who they are. That’s why I’m glad the Supreme Court got at least half of this week’s ruling right." Read the column

Rochelle Riley, Detroit Free Press
Demand for change needs affirming: "After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the University of Michigan could continue to use race in admissions, I wondered who would say it first. And President George W. Bush didn't disappoint." Read the column

Stan Simpson, The Hartford Courant
Look To Gap In Academic Achievement: "Who'd have thought a bunch of white guys would make the most convincing argument to uphold affirmative action? Read the column

Elmer Smith, Philadelphia Daily News
Ruling is no threat to Constitution: "THE U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Michigan cases left little for anti-affirmative-action litigants to hang their hats on - or for pro-diversity advocates to hang their heads about." Read the column

 Tonyaa Weathersbee, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com
Has Clarence Thomas lost it?: "Clarence Thomas is losing it. I hate to say that about the lone black Supreme Court justice; a man who, for all his success, is still so traumatized by childhood teasing over a speech impediment that he rarely makes oral comments on high court decisions" Read the column

DeWayne Wickham, USA Today/Gannett News Service
Thomas distorts Douglass' speech: "It's not just Clarence Thomas' using a quote from Frederick Douglass as the anchor for his dissent to the Supreme Court's decision in the University of Michigan Law School case that bothers me. As misleading as it was for the conservative black jurist to try to align his opposition to affirmative action with the thinking of Douglass, the 19th century abolitionist, it was the words he dropped from the 138-year-old passage that show the flaw in his thinking." Read the column

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