We're not ready to close the door on affirmative action.

• Author: Cote, Mike

At a Southern college helmed by a black president, students live in lavish dormitories that resemble plantation mansions.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Corinthian columns sculpted from marble flank the doorways. Plush maroon carpeting leads to spacious rooms, each one furnished with four-poster beds, espresso machines, air conditioning and windows with stunning vistas.

Those are the digs for the black kids.

White students don't get the A/C or the views, and their humble abodes resemble shantytowns: ramshackle buildings equipped with rustic bunks stacked on dirt floors, with thin timber walls that look like they could be reduced to cinders with the strike of a match.

Excuse me, I just woke up from an affirmative action nightmare.

Actually, that scenario is based on a sketch I watched 30 years ago on "Fernwood 2Nite," a short-lived talk-show parody starring Martin Mull and Fred Willard and produced by Norman Lear, the man who brought us Archie Bunker and George Jefferson.

That I still remember this episode so many years later underscores the impact it made. It was hilarious because of its unsettling nature: You laugh while images of slave ships and burning crosses rattle the back of your mind.

In the quarter-century since, our path toward a society that treats all races and cultures equally has hardly traveled a clear upward trajectory. And the jokes haven't changed much. We laugh when Larry David's dog in "Curb Your Enthusiasm" snarls only at minorities, and when frequent guest star Wanda Sykes catches David in a seemingly racist moment.

That's why it's hard to understand the thinking behind the proposed anti-affirmative action ballot issue pitched by Sen. Dave Schulthesis and Rep. Kent Lambert, both Colorado Springs Republicans. The "civil rights initiative" gunning for a spot in 2008--modeled after a successful 1996 California measure--is designed to eliminate affirmative action policies in such venues as university admissions and government contracting.

The ballot issue takes aim at measures such as the city of Denver's Construction Empowerment Initiative, a 2006 program designed to increase city contracts with small businesses, especially those owned by women and minorities.

Proponents say affirmative action promotes racism by creating double standards. In theory, that's correct. In an attempt to reverse decades of discrimination, such programs give minorities an edge over whites. And they can breed resentment when questions of competency...