Combining Powell’s principles and Johnson’s ambition propels us back to the moment when key national policies advantaged whites. They also push us forward to a framework for public policies that can respond to the injuries inflicted by officially sanctioned racism. Though motivated by a desire to protect Jim Crow, many of the methods those programs used were adopted on a non-racial basis. A renewed, extended program of affirmative action could offer a reciprocal possibility. Affirmative action could be established in ways that at least partially transcend race, even while primarily rectifying
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