Focus 580; Affirmative Action

In this hour of the show we'll be talking with Christopher Edley. He is on the faculty at Harvard Law School. He is also the founding co-director of the Civil Rights Project. It's a multi-disciplinary research an advocacy think tank based at Harvard which is focusing on a number of issues that have to do with racial justice. He is also now serving a six year term as a member of the bipartisan U.S. Civil Rights Commission. He's the author of the book not all black and white affirmative action race and American values which grew out of his work as special counsel to President Clinton and also director of the White House review of affirmative action in that project he was credited as the architect of Clinton's mend it don't end that defense of preferment of action. After he finished graduate school he began his career serving in the Carter administration he was assistant director of the White House domestic policy staff. He joined the faculty at Harvard Law School and one thousand eighty one he served in the Dukakis presidential campaign as national issues director. And in 1900 to re entered the political arena as a

senior advisor on economic policy for the Clinton-Gore presidential transition he also served two years in the Clinton administration as a senior budget and policy official. He will be leaving Harvard this summer to become dean of the University of California Berkeley's Law School and he will be here on this campus next week. He will be the keynote speaker. And the campuses a series of events to mark King Day. He'll be talking on the topic of the affirmative action battle new directions for civil rights movement. His talk is on Tuesday at 4 o'clock in the afternoon at Smith Hall auditorium on South Matthews on the campus and this event is free and open to the public so certainly anybody in and around Champaign-Urbana should be welcome here on the program this morning as we talk about affirmative action I'm sure and other subjects questions are welcome the only thing we ask of callers is their brief. We ask that to keep moving. Get in as many people as possible. If you'd like to call you're certainly. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to

2 2 9 4 5 5. Professor Edley Hello. DAVID Yes thank you very much for talking with us. My pleasure good morning. When I read a number of articles about the fact that you had gotten the job old hall and one of the comments that you apparently made to one of the reporters was that you referred to California as being ground zero in the nation's dramatic demographic shift to a multiethnic society. You're certainly going right into the jazz of the debate over affirmative action there. I am indeed bad and a budget battle. There are demographic shifts in California have have really been astounding and I think that one of the one of the issues we're all confronting is that as our communities and our institutions change around the nation what are we doing to prepare for that change what are we doing to face it effectively and in California for example in the higher education system.

Unfortunately things are really evolving into almost a tiered troop. Class system with Latino's and African-Americans represented in very small numbers in the handful of elite top tier institutions within that within California public higher education. But but but really dominating the enrollment in the community college system on the other end. So the budget cuts and the hikes in tuition are having a huge impact disproportionate impact racially. And when the population is becoming increasingly Latino this really doesn't bode well for the for the future economy of California. Well for their social cohesion. But this issues of grappling with the diversity with the change that are that that are taking place are really quite dramatic in California. If they can figure it out though they will have important valuable lessons for the

rest of the country. One other thing that was mentioned I think probably and I read a number of stories about your appointment to this position I think one of the things that was mentioned in everyone is that you would become the first African-American to lead a top ranked U.S. law school. And it seems stunning I guess that in the year 2004 that would be the case. Well it is going to do it and I think it. It's certainly unfortunate that that that is something that still requires deserves to be remarked upon. But I think it's also true that too many people are under the false impression that that all of our issues of racial difference and and and progress that we've completed that agenda and we haven't it's been it's been only a short generation since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and

the anti discrimination statutes and so forth. And regrettably I think a lot of people would just assume closed the book on the effort to erase America's history of color cast before really the work of repair has been complete. When I mentioned it and that you were you talk a little bit when I said that you were going into the jaws of the affirmative action debate there in California but certainly given the fact that they had to now going back several years now I guess could be five five years or four or five years that this was a place where there was a state wide ban on affirmative action and there was a lot of concern about what that would mean to the numbers of African-American students particularly in higher education and I think the law school there Ball was one of the places where this was very hotly debated. And in fact what seems to have happened at least as far as African-American students is concerned is

what people thought would happen. That is the number of black students has indeed gone down there probably that the number of Latino students did initially that there has been some. From what I read there has been some rebound but there's still a concern about overall the number of minorities and its relationship to the population and then specifically the numbers of African-American students there is still a concern I mean that the news this year is reasonably encouraging that with tremendous outreach efforts and a lot of heavy recruiting. The numbers for both blacks and Latinos and for under-represented Asian groups are back to roughly where they were before that initiative called Proposition 209 a ballot initiative in California. But it's gone. Takeover OK efforts to maintain that diversity that that that people almost unanimously believe they're on the Berkeley campus is an indispensable ingredient of excellence as well as central to the mission of a public university. I've

noted that elsewhere in the university system the rebound has not been as full has not been as successful and that diversity issues that I mentioned earlier are continuing to play a substantial part of the university system. It's also a problem outside of the admissions process with respect to hiring. It would be interesting if it if it had just this past June the U.S. Supreme Court in the affirmative action cases involving the University of Michigan ruled that that certain forms of race sensitive affirmative action in admissions all were in fact permissible under the U.S. Constitution. If it's done properly it's it. It's frankly it's an endorsement of Clinton's mend it don't end it position by a quite conservative Supreme Court in a narrow 5 to 4 decision. So you have the U.S. Supreme Court saying

mend it don't end it with respect to affirmative action. But the people of California. The half dozen years ago Bode had made a political decision to end voluntary and I emphasize that to end voluntary public sector affirmative action in education and elsewhere. What we're really facing in the rest of the country now that the U.S. Supreme Court has said that it's constitutionally permissible if it were facing now the political choice the policy choice of whether to use that constitutional flexibility through our political processes through our policy processes to continue to use affirmative action in a flexible carefully narrowly tailored way. Amend it don't end it approach. Maybe you could talk a little bit more about your experience in the Clinton administration when you were involved in reviewing affirmative action and then trying to develop a. An approach to policy that's that's characterized by that phrase that I used and you use that the fact that we maybe we want to

say we. Support the basic idea of affirmative action. We don't want to get rid of it. And yet maybe there could be some fine tuning on the way how it is we approach. That's right. To to to make sure it's done done carefully avoiding abuses and to make sure that it ends when the need for it no longer exists. Well let me set the stage of this. This affirmative action review rose in January back in 1995 and it was frankly a response on the part of the White House staff to a growing interest on the part of some Republicans on Capitol Hill to legislate and to certain federal affirmative action programs for women and minorities. President Clinton decided in a meeting that he had with a with a small group of us that before responding publicly to this Republican initiative he really wanted to do a

thorough study of the federal programs and find out as he put it what works and what doesn't work. I had already actually packed my boxes and was ready to return to Cambridge to to to my professorship. But. But he prevailed. Upon me to stick around to run this review which ended up taking about six months to do it we had an utterly fascinating series of almost graduate seminar style discussions in the Oval Office with the president the vice president a couple of a couple of aides in which we really took apart the affirmative action programs in every detail. We debated the social science evidence we looked at the legal decisions we discussed social philosophy and moral philosophy. We looked at the history of the issue we considered alternative strategies for designing opportunity programs and at the end of it and debating the pros and cons

from every imaginable angle. At the end of it Clinton over arrived at what what I believe and what he believed was a coherent approach to affirmative action across a wide range of contexts from education to employment to two to government contracting and the like. That's really based on principle rather than on political polls. And it was this then that even if it's controversial it's the right thing to do. And he concluded that he just wanted to be candid about his sense that there remains an important need for these programs provided they're done carefully. Maybe I should introduce again. Our guest for this part of focus 580 We're talking with Christopher Edley. He is on the faculty of Harvard Law School and has been there since 1981. He has been selected to become the new dean of the University of California Berkeley's law school and will be going there this summer. He is serving a six year term as a

member of the bipartisan U.S. Civil Rights Commission and also is founding co-director of the Civil Rights Project. It's a multi-disciplinary research and advocacy think tank based at Harvard that is issued in interested in issues of racial justice. And he will be on the campus on Tuesday of next week. He'll be giving a speech. This was the keynote address of the campuses a series of events marking Martin Luther King Day. It's free open to the public he'll be talking about affirmative action on Tuesday and 4:00 in the afternoon at Smith Hall on the UI campus in the auditorium there. It's on South Matthews and anybody here in around in around Champaign-Urbana who is interested in attending so should certainly feel free here on this program questions are welcome to 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 is the champagne Urbana number we do also have a toll free line. That's good to anywhere that you can hear us and it is eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5. I think that as you mentioned the Supreme Court decision of

this past June of last year and certainly people at educational institutions all around the country were looking at this very closely because they were they were saying to themselves well depending upon what the court says we may have to make some significant changes in the process that we used to admit students. Is it is it clear exactly now from from what the court said what is and is not permissible. Things are clear and some things remain to be to be worked out over time. But there are two central questions. Oh used in constitutional Now if this were a sensitive affirmative action the first question is whether or not there is a compelling interest on the part of the governmental entity for example a public university whether there's a compelling interest for pursuing affirmative action. And the second question is whether or not the

policy even if justified has been narrowly tailored that's a carefully designed to serve that interest to what was really. The most important part of the decision was that the court resolved very firmly and very clearly in quite sweeping language. The first question that is to say the court ruled that there is a compelling interest in race that affirmative action based on the interests of universities in diversity in being inclusive. Because the court was persuaded that by being inclusive institutions can pursue a mission of educational excellence in that the first student body leads to better education. People not only learn things differently learn more things

but also become better prepared to lead to work in diverse institutions and diverse communities which of course gets back to the point we made at the top of the show about the changing demography. If a country the court in Justice O'Connor's opinion spoke eloquently about the changes sweeping the country and about the critical need for institutions of higher education to prepare people to work in that changing world. So that was the first point. But the second point the second thing that that the court decided was that to make sure that affirmative action programs are narrowly tailored it's vitally important that they be flexible that they not be driven by quotas that they not be driven in a mechanical way by formulas or point systems that don't permit individual applicants to be compared with one another that race if used as a factor in decision making has to be used in a flexible way as one of

many factors that weigh in the in the admissions process. Applying that. Second holding about narrow tailoring of the Supreme Court upheld the flexible so called whole file of review used by the University of Michigan Law School but it struck down a point based admissions system used by the undergraduate school at the University of Michigan in which a fixed number of points was added in the admissions process for any applicant from an underrepresented minority and a majority of the justices had objections to that mechanical quality of the undergraduate system even though a majority of the court upheld the flexible system at the law school. So just to sum up what this means on a going forward basis is that colleges and universities. Adopt a race sensitive affirmative action or continue or a set of affirmative action based either on

the need to remedy discrimination that old law or based upon this compelling interest in diversity provided the way in which they use affirmative action is flexible not mechanical and that they revealed that the policy over time to make sure that they really need it and that there aren't alternatives that would be equally effective at achieving the compelling interest of diversity when the court issued this opinion in June. Justice O'Connor was the one who wrote the the opinion for the majority and she said that in her opinion rights that we expect that 25 years from now the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary. So she obviously she was she was saying and expressing the feeling of the majority of the court that this is something that we do still need but that it is our hope and our expectation that we will always need to be doing that.

Given though I mean I guess at. And given the fact that that we've been talking about this since at least the 900 sixties when we first when the concept was first laid out there in the mid 60s one would have to ask. Given that we seem not to have made a whole lot of progress in the past few decades do we really think that in another 25 years things will have changed that much I guess I wondered you know where we're we've come from where we are and where you think we're going. Well it depends on what day of the week it is a matter of feeling I mean I think it is it is. Look anybody who works in civil rights issues has to be by and large optimistic you have to stay hopeful because. Because the work obviously is difficult and the setbacks are frequent. He said it but it just put it on my law professor hat for a moment I think. The overwhelming view of constitutional scholars civil rights scholars have analyzed these

opinions is that Justice O'Connor point is 25 years remember that that's just a number she pulled out of the air thinking well was roughly 25 years ago that the Supreme Court handled its first major case in this area the Baki case. So let's take another 25 years and hope that by that time we won't need this anymore. She put a number out of the air. It's aspirational it's not a deadline. It's sort of it is it gives voice to I think what we all would hope namely that society will have changed enough so that in order to achieve inclusive body no special effort will be required. Let me just pause and say just just for example when I when I was a law student at Harvard. Guess what even when I when I first joined the faculty back in the early eighties there was

some affirmative action in the admissions process for women. But some time over the over during the decade of the 80s I'd say the need for affirmative action for women at the law school disappeared and in fact now the women are really where bounces around between 45 and 55 percent of the entering class. It wasn't that there was a faculty vote to do away with it. It was simply that there were enough changes in society that generated changes in the admissions pool so that we could get to diversity the gender diversity we wanted in the entering class without having to do anything special in the admissions process without having to pay attention to gender. That's a huge success that we should celebrate in other words the affirmative action for women died of natural causes. And that's worth celebrating. There are still lots of places around the university in which women are dramatically under represented

and there's still a need for some affirmative action. But similarly the question will be when will they. There have been enough changes in the pipeline. The K through 12 pipeline so that colleges and grad. Schools will no longer feel that in order to achieve this compelling interest this higher quality of education through diversity they have to pay attention to race. We hope sooner rather than later can it happen in 25 years. Well let's look at another issue. If you just look at the question of the achievement gap in K through 12 education between racial and ethnic minorities blacks latinos certain Asian subgroups on the one hand and whites on the other hand the achievement gaps are still quite substantial even daunting. The real challenge the real question is are we going to put in place the public policies. Do we have the political the Burra window to make the changes we need to make in K-12 education so that those achievement disparities

gradually. Well quickly would be bad but a bit to those. Those achievement disparities fade away if we can achieve that if we can do that if we can accomplish that then the admission schools or colleges will start to be more balanced and you won't need affirmative action in order to get diversity. So here's the question. I mean what I say to what I say to opponents of affirmative action what I say to people who are in a hurry to dismantle it is really to ended the moment. It's no longer needed. You tell me when the K-12 system will be repaired so that education disparities based on race or or correlated with race and ethnicity disappear. And I'll tell you when we will no longer need affirmative action in college we have a caller to bring into the conversation other people who are listening or certainly also welcome to join with their questions and comments. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5

toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5. What color is in champagne and wine one. Well you know we made it through very well. That's robbery. A lot of cash but I'm not you know I think a lot of people aren't aware you know on what you know what the bill the bill that's going to be added to that because so many don't do well and at the rope bridge the Pittston help them write a book writer. But anyway that's not a topic. But then a question comment was that

I think coming over here and from my point of view and nurse is not as diverse as first interest in this area. Do I think we should pay attention. Man it's not but I have a question and it has to do with something a brought up what other people are on the topic. I've never gotten much of an answer but you kind of put the subject area at least when you're talking about gender. Yes I know it disappeared and I don't know if you caught this or an opinion. But the segment on what terms go on from action for men for boys

and that they looked thoughtful if it was an over high school. I pointed out how the valedictorian and the person have an extra curricular activities were headed by the males and then post that that's really widespread. And I've had. It on the table for a live action in order to keep the balance and interest. Roughly right now the period for that kind of thing in California and you know and like and in fact holding back and also a kind of curious.

I'm surprised nobody is taking up the banner. It's a time of atonement. Men and men are helped. Right right. Surprised himself not to suspect that I don't expect it but it's a great question it's this is a this is this is becoming a huge issue. And on a lot of campuses where men are disappearing. It tends to be a more serious problem among minorities. But it's true but it's true even for whites Frangos and I've been in several in several conferences in which people have remarked upon that data and to try to figure out what to make of it what to do about it. There are all

kinds of sociological theories that are that are offered for it. You asked specifically about California and yet the same phenomenon is happening in California higher education. But you can step back and and say well should we worry about this. What do you mean. Why should we. Why should this suddenly become a call celeb I mean just that just to play law professor here for a second. Suppose one discovered that that there were more short people than tall people proportionately. Would we suddenly decide that this is a policy crisis and we have to make some special effort to understand the problem and rectify it. It's sort of an absurd example but I guess what I'm getting at is

that if the principle behind the design of your admissions policy is that you are trying to assemble a group that will enable the quality of the education to be as excellent as possible. Then the question is are you seeing a disparity are you seeing an underrepresentation with respect to some set of people or some set of attributes. That's a vital ingredient of excellence. Now I have a little bit of trouble making an argument that Paul vs. short is critical to the quality of the educational enterprise. I don't have any trouble wherever making the argument with respect to race and ethnicity. I think the argument with respect to gender is sort of in the middle sort of in the middle. So what I want to do in the research that we need is to better understand what's producing this under representation of males. It's not by the way just a

matter of things that are going on in the criminal justice system. That of the explained a tiny fraction of what's going on. It more has to do people backed with differential expectations for boys versus girls in middle school and high school and not enough effort perhaps being put in at the K through 12 level in seeing to it that boys particularly boys that may have some behavioral issues are not seeing to it that they're really working up to their full potential and that we have the same kinds of expert. Patients but their success that we do for everybody else at that. That's the kind of thing you really have to probe at it and see whether there's a quirk going on whether there's some development that's going on that requires an intervention that requires a new set of public policies or alternatively are we missing something that we need on campus in our classrooms in order to have an outstanding institution. I'm kind of troubled by by by this by what you report as

the the under representation of minorities at Champaign-Urbana it is because I do believe as Justice O'Connor acknowledged that in her opinion I do believe that learning from each other across these lines of difference is absolutely indispensable for an institution that's training people to go out and be leaders. And that's obviously what the university is up to. So it's a hugely important challenge that deserves that deserves a lot of resources deserves a lot of attention in order to get what it improve the situation. Well I have some other calls here hope the caller will mind if I go on and the next person. Isn't that soon Arlyn number two. Yeah hi I was calling I noticed in your discussion that rather than saying that affirmative action programs were designed to counteract an institutional imbalance among minorities that it's always stated that it's for the

cataract institution a balance among whites and then blacks Latinos and certain Asian groups and I'm assuming this is kind of vaguely referring to the over representation of other Asian groups in the educational systems especially in the University of California. Scuse me. And I was wondering if you see that as possibly a problem to be addressed by and how if at all that should be addressed. I don't see it as a I don't see it as a problem to be addressed I don't think that I don't feel that there is that I don't think the way to think of it is over representation of any particular groups now that may be an argument about the party needing to grow to be bigger that's certainly a problem in California where the size of public higher education just in terms of the number of slots that are available for number of seats that are available has not kept up with the population growth of the budget cuts. The

starvation of public higher education in order to finance the tax cuts or in order to finance the growing prison prison population those things have really eaten into California's investment in in public higher education in the same thing is happening in several other states around the country I don't know what. I don't know what the situation is in Illinois. So I would not say it's a problem of overrepresentation But here's the point I here's the point I'd make two things Number one I think. Many people make a mistake of lumping together all Asian-Americans as though this is a sort of monolithic and it's simply it's just not the case. The difference between for example Japanese and Korean Americans on the one hand a TACAN Chinese

person is Southeast Asians and east is dramatic their socio economic circumstances the education achievement education attainment dramatically different. There is no there's no need for affirmative action in the University of California system for Chinese Americans for example. But if you ask about. Filipinos or Cambodians. The answer is they're dramatically under represented and in fact their socio economic condition is worse than the socio economic condition of most Latinos and African-Americans. So the perspective that they bring is quite different from the perspective of somebody who's a third generation Chinese American. And including that perspective within the student body mix is going to enrich everyone as well as help the

university fulfill its mission. So I think that I think that that kind of subtlety that kind of sophistication is exactly exactly what the Supreme Court is talking about when it's said if you're going to do affirmative action you have to do it carefully. And that means a willingness to look closely at distinctions not act mechanically and keep your eye on the ball. What are you trying to accomplish and why. And the situation is going to change our view today. Our View today about which groups need a helping hand to get the opportunity they deserve. It's going to be different from our view 10 years from now because the fight is going to change it's going to evolve. OK. Thanks very much. All right thank you. Let's go to Champagne County for the next caller this is line number three. Yes.

Is the diversity argument is fine but I think people shouldn't give up on you when you hang on a second we need to take you down because our last line didn't hang itself up and we'll do that in the. We got you back I'm sorry. OK. I see the diversity argument is fine but I think that people shouldn't give up on even though it's complicated. Filipinos are a good example of him coming from only up until 45. But the richer idea of a redress of grievances. I mean the first sort of action was in reconstruction 40 acres and a mule and it was betrayed. So I just I don't think people should give up on that. That's a very interesting points of Eric stick with. Look the way I I think about this. I I sometimes jokingly say that your brain is divided into two hemispheres. Right the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere and your left hemisphere is reserved for law and your right hemisphere is for everything

else. So if you're just thinking about things from the perspective of law then the question is what justifications for race conscious decision making. Remember race is radioactive. That's our history. That's why we had a civil war. That's what the 14th Amendment was was was was adopted to address. So race from a constitutional perspective is radioactive. Question. What set of justifications are available for race conscious decision making by government. And what the Supreme Court has ruled over the decades is that only a very few justifications are powerful enough to permit the government to pay attention to race because you want to remedy discrimination specific acts of discrimination

by government that are reasonably recent in time. So when you were dismantling this you're a segregation when you were dismantling Jim Crow laws. When you're dismantling the systems of public higher education that if segregated people or women in. For YOUR has a history has a pattern of discrimination. Paying attention to race to remedy that situation. That's probably what the court did in the Michigan case as it said not only to remedy those specific acts of discrimination but another compelling interest is to pursue excellence through inclusion. So if you're a university if you're a police department if you make up the case that in order to do your job you have to be inclusive and paying attention to race is the way to get there. OK. The constitutional argument now let me switch gears.

After it's constitutionally permissible then the question becomes is it politically desirable. California by a vote on a ballot initiative has said no. The rest of us outside of California and outside of the state of Washington have to make that political case now in making the political argument. You're not limited to just those few things that the Supreme Court has said are constitutional justifications. Now there is a broader set of arguments that we can bring to bear including redress of grievances including reparations including this will be good for economic growth including any any any sorts of arguments that are persuasive in the court of public opinion. And I don't want to. I don't want to. Those are not unimportant arguments. I'm just saying that that the courts have ruled that simply redress in grievances or simply saying this is going to make society better are not powerful enough arguments in a constitutional setting that they alone would justify race conscious action if it did it. It's a bit complicated Let me just add one more thought and then

I then I promise to subside. What the court would say what it what what a constitutional lawyer would say about the reparations issue about the history of slavery about the history of racial caste about the Asian Exclusion statutes and all the rest of it. What the court would say is those were horrible things. Society is free to do whatever it can to remedy the lingering damage done by those acts. But the strategy society chooses cannot be race conscious strategies. You can invest in college in education. You can invest in health care. You can have welfare programs but you can't have color conscious strategies unless you have these compelling interest that they've defined quite merrily. You know well I think a better solution than all would probably be just having more access to higher education free education for everybody. Right. So

everybody we will be fighting over who spoke so much. The grocery moment you can not. But I would really since we're on Martin Luther King Day the anniversary voters righter Voters Rights Act. I think I see this case in Texas where Fort Worth. And minority community there I think it's mixed actually Hispanic and Black has been divided up in find ways to gerrymander and it's to the court decision I guess it was a post level federal district but this was a political decision. It wasn't a race based decision therefore it's allowed to go ahead. That's just absolutely it I mean how can that be. It's obviously it's both I mean it and I I just the Supreme. It is probably going to let it stand though not right grant cert. It's just outrageous. That's right. Any short explanation of why you think that's the case I mean it's really it's just it's a no brainer as it's I mean I can if I can explain it I just agree with you

completely I mean this is about I but I can tell you what the reasoning is and I think it's I think it is. I think it is. I think it's a deeply flawed but the but the reasoning is just so that it that the audience understands completely the question is when the state legislature sits down to draw up a map and decide congressional districts or states senatorial districts or city council districts whatever it's a given that in drawing those lines they can be part. It's a given that they can for example try to protect incumbents that they can in other words use political and indeed even partisan calculations in order to draw the lines the way they will. And if you don't like it you vote out the legislature. That's the that's the that's the that's the issue it is not and it's not an equal protection violation to have

partisan drift in election redistricting. However weight becomes a predominant factor. Race becomes a predominant factor. Then you've got a constitutional problem. Unless there's a compelling interest unless you are in fact trying to remedy under representation. So the problem here is many people believe that the minority communities in Fort Worth were put at. Some disadvantage as a result of this redistricting. The constitutional question is what is the racial disadvantage intentional or was it simply the byproduct of a perfectly legitimate

partisan line drawing. And the court ruled that it was perfectly legitimate partisan line Troy. And if there's collateral damage for minority representation that's ok so long as there was no invidious motive. Now I just want to since a period paragraph is the state of the law. The problem is that they're living on it. Other planet they're living on another planet. I have an invidious motive. Am I going to announce it on the floor of the state legislature. No I'm going to couch my concerns in an acceptable partisan language rather than be upfront about the fact that I want to minimize the number of minorities who are elected. I think that the Supreme Court is not being realistic in the way in which it's constructed this doctrine. It's not being realistic about the way advantages and disadvantages are handed

out in the in the apportionment process in the in the in the line drawing process in state legislatures. We are just about at the point here that we are going to have to finish and I must apologize we have a couple of callers. I don't think we're going to be able to take them because we're really up against the the end of the program. My apology is too long winded. You should know that we encourage because we talk about things that cannot really easily be discussed and in 30 second sound bite so we encourage our guests too. Take some some time and some thought to answer questions so that should not be a no criticism implied there if you are of your performance we certainly appreciate you talking with us and I also certainly want to tell people who are here now listening to us in Champaign-Urbana that our guest Christopher Edley will be speaking on the topic the affirmative action battle new directions for the civil rights movement as part of the campuses observations of King Day next week. He'll be speaking at four in the afternoon on Tuesday in the auditorium of Smith Hall on South

Matthews. That's the keynote address for the King Day events and it is free and open to the public and anyone who is interested it certainly should should feel welcome our guest Christopher Edley. He's at Harvard Law School and will this year be going to California to become dean of the law school at the University of California Berkeley and Professor Edley thank you very much for talking with us. Appreciate it David. Take care.