I am very concerned that at the end of the summer, one of the current Supreme Court Justices will retire. And if it doesn't happen this summer, it is bound to happen some time before the Bush Residency ends..which means, of course, that some wing-nut will probably get nominated to the bench. But I must say, though I am often disappointed with the current right-leaning majority on the court, today we as a nation have reason to celebrate. Affirmative action has been preserved. By a 5-4 decision. While special points systems have been struck down, the central tenets of affirmative action have been upheld by the court. HALLELUJAH.

It's been a while since I had an engaging discussion with anyone about affirmative action. It is such an emotional issue for me. It is one of the issues about which I feel most strongly. I am not sure why I feel so strongly - I am a middle class white girl. Sure, I am Jewish...but that has only contributed to my opportunities in life, not hindered them. Yet, I feel it in my bones, the way I do a woman's right to choose or the injustice of the death penalty. I worked on the campaign to save it in California...and when we lost...when all the people of California lost...I was so dejected I quit politics all together and went to work in the private sector where I would not grow so emotionally attached to my work.

Many years ago, I decided to keep my feelings about affirmative action to myself. It was easier to bait me into a heated argument about affirmative action than it is to give candy to a child. And invariably, I would become so enraged and feel utterly crushed if the person I was arguing with did not believe that affirmative action is necessary; that the ridiculous phrase "reverse racism" would be used; that they would conjure up some story about how a deserving white person was on the losing end of affirmative action...someone always knew someone who lost a spot at a school, on a team, in a club because a minority candidate got it...that offensive belief that the only way a white person could be rejected was because some undeserving minority was accepted in his place...and the other side of that equation being that the only way a minority person could be accepted was by displacing some more deserving white candidate, but not because he or she was deserving in his or her own right. These arguments would make me nuts. I even found myself one day arguing...practically screaming...at the top of my lungs in the middle of California Street after getting off the bus from work one day. I was arguing with a friend who claimed that he was the "victim" of affirmative action. I didn't understand. He went to private prep school on scholarship. Then he attended Princeton on a football scholarship. And he got his job because he knew someone from Proinceton who knew the person doing the hiring. Yet somehow he believed that he was victimized by affirmative action. Because he didn't get into his first choice prep school and some nameless, faceless minority person did and therefore they took his spot. Nevermind this guy was, as my sister would say, "dumb as a box o' rocks." We haven't spoken since. That was 1997.

And when A___ and I started dating we would get into political discussions and he would express his opposition, or at least ambivalence, to affirmative action. And I would find myself talking down to him, then getting angry with him and losing respect for him. So I decided to keep my affirmative action feelings to myself. Race issues are very hot...chances of me convinving someone to see my point of view are as slim as me seeing theirs. So I determined that it is simply not worth it to argue, strain relationships and lose friends.

But today is a happy day. Nuanced as it is, the decision is unequivocal...as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said, "Student body diversity is a compelling state interest in the context of university admissions...Race-based action to further a compelling government interest does not violate the [Constitution's] Equal Protection Clause."