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  3. Affirmative action may not be the most divisive issue on the ballot, but it remains an unending source of conflict and debate at

Affirmative action may not be the most divisive issue on the ballot, but it remains an unending source of conflict and debate at

admin2010-07-19  15
问题    Affirmative action may not be the most divisive issue on the ballot, but it remains an unending source of conflict and debate at least in Michigan, whose citizens are pondering a proposal that would ban affirmative action in the public sector. No one knows whether other states will follow Michigan’s lead, but partisans on both sides see the vote as crucial--a decision that could either help or hinder a movement aimed at ending "preferential treatment" programs once and for all.
   Ward Connerly has no doubts about the outcome. "Them may be some ups and downs.., with regard to affirmative action, but it’s ending," .says Connerly, the main mover behind the Michigan proposal, who pushed almost identical propositions to passage in California 10 years ago and in Washington state two years later. His adversaries are equally passionate. "I just want to shout from the rooftops, ’This isn’t good for America’," says Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan. She sees no need for Michigan to adopt the measure. "We have a living experiment in California, and it has failed," says Coleman.
   Wade Henderson, executive director of the leadership Conference on Civil Rights, sees something deeply symbolic in the battle. Michigan, in his eyes, is where resegregation began--with a 1974 U.S. Supreme Court decision that tossed out a plan to bus Detroit children to the suburbs. Henderson sees that decision as a prelude to the hypersegregation that now defines much of Michigan. The Supreme Court is currently considering two new cases that could lead to another ruling on how far public school systems can go in their quest to maintain racial balance.
   All of which raises a question: why are we still wrestling with this stuff? Why, more than a quarter of a century after the high court ruled race had a legitimate place in university admissions decisions, are we still fighting over whether race should play a role?
   One answer is that the very idea of affirmative action--that is, systematically treating members of various groups differently in the pursuit of diversity or social justice--strikes some people as downright immoral. For to believe in affirmative action is to believe in a concept of equality turned upside down. It is to believe that "to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently," as the idea was expressed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun.
   That argument has never been an easy sell, even when made passionately by President Lyndon B. Johnson during an era in which prejudice was thicker than L. A. smog. Now the argument is infinitely more difficult to make. Even those generally supportive of affirmative action don’t like the connotations it sometimes carries. "No one wants preferential treatment, including African-Americans," observed Ed Sarpolis, vice president of EPIC-MRA, a Michigan polling firm.
   In 2003, the Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan’s right to use race in the pursuit of "diversity," even as it condemned the way the undergraduate school had chosen to do so. The decision left Jennifer Gratz, the named plaintiff, fuming. "I called Ward Connerly... and I said, ’We need to do something about this’," recalled Gratz, an animated former cheerleader. They decided that if the Supreme Court wouldn’t give them what they wanted, they would take their case--and their proposition--directly to the people.
   Californians disagree about the impact of Connerly’s proposition on their state. But despite some exceedingly grim predictions, the sky did not fall in. Most people went about their lives much as they always had.
   In a sane world, the battle in Michigan, and indeed the battle over affirmative action writ large, would offer an opportunity to seriously engage a question the enemies and defenders of affirmative action claim to care about; how do you go about creating a society where all people--not just the lucky few--have the opportunities they deserve? It is a question much broader than the debate over affirmative action. But until we begin to move toward an answer, the debate over affirmative action will continue--even if it is something of a sideshow to what should be the main event.
According to Wade Henderson, the US Supreme Court ______.
选项 A、once helped maintain apartheid in Michigan.
B、was against racism and racial segregation.
C、states its position On preferential treatment.
D、is going to rule on two new cases of segregation.
答案A
解析 细节题。由Supreme Court定位至第三段。第二句指出；在他看来，密歇根州是种族隔离重新开始的地方--1974年最高法院裁决否定了一项让底特律的孩子乘公交车去郊区的计划。[A]符合文意，故为答案。[B]与此矛盾；排除。末句提到了two new cases，但并未提到segregation，[D]不符合文意，排除。
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