Democracy Tested

The US military was deployed, the Bush Administration tells us, to bring democracy to Iraq. But the military brass and the Administration have apparently parted company on what democracy means in the United States, as the Supreme Court arguments on April 1 in the University of Michigan affirmative action cases made clear.

Solicitor General Ted Olson, arguing on behalf of the Administration, attacked the Michigan law school admissions program as "constitutionally objectionable" for naming racial diversity as a goal, "an end in and of itself," in admissions. Several Justices quickly interrupted, directing Olson's attention to the "military brief" filed in the case.

In that brief, three former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two former defense secretaries and retired heads of the military academies endorsed affirmative action as essential to national security in a multiracial democracy. "The military," they said, "must be permitted to train and educate a diverse officer corps" to circumvent the morale problems and communication bottlenecks of the Vietnam era, when a virtually all-white officer corps commanded large numbers of black and Latino troops.

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