To hear the University of Michigan and various pro-affirmative action UM campus factions tell it, the UM community is overwhelmingly happy with the school's use of racial preferences in admissions. But a survey conducted by the Michigan Student Assembly last week suggests otherwise: It found that 41.5 percent of students opposed UM's use of race in admissions, while 40.8 percent of students supported the University and 17.7 percent of students said they did not feel they knew enough about the issues to have an opinion. UM's admissions policies are supposed to be for the students--for their enrichment, enlightenment, and multicultural betterment. And as UM fights to show that its politicies are constitutional, it needs to be able to show that the quality of education at UM is enhanced by the diversity produced by race-conscious admissions policies. But if the students don't want the policies....

I wonder what such a survey would show after a full and honest debate about such policies. In my experience this is just what is so sorely missing from most mainstream media coverage of diversity-related topics, including affirmative action. It is just accepted that diversity is a beneficial and therefore desirable end, and affirmative action is a necessary means.

The ends justify the means. That says it all about the Left. Since their goals are righteous (and their opponents irredeemably malevolent) anything that furthers the cause is acceptable. They see no hypocricy in discrimination based on race being used to remedy discrimination based on race.