Just as time alone will not solve America’s race-related problems, neither will affirmative action. The fundamental problem with (and the dilemma of) affirmative action is that it was never meant to carry the weight society has thrown on its shoulders. It was never meant to rescue the poor. It was never supposed to enlighten the illiterate, make the sick well, or feed the hungry. It was not meant to make up for the inadequacies of a bad K through 12 education; or, for that matter, to make up for the deficiencies that develop well before children even get to kindergarten.

It began as a modest attempt to give a bit of a boost to a handful of folks from a race of people who had been unfairly held back for centuries. But because we, as a nation, lacked the will or knowledge to solve the big problems, we charged affirmative action with doing it all. And it morphed into something both grand (in terms of public perception) and small (in terms of its actual impact), making it vulnerable not only to criticism of its not being effective, but also of its being too onerous and of violating the very spirit of the equal treatment it is supposed to remedy or promote.

The choice society faces is not about ending affirmative action — at some point, as both its critics and defenders agree, the affirmative action tugboat will run out of steam. The question is whether, before that happens, society will find the will and resources to vanquish the problems that gave rise to it in the first place. No child chooses to be born into poverty with parents who are semi-literate or to live in neighborhoods where the schools are little more than holding pens, where dropping out is more common than graduating. No child chooses to be told, virtually from the moment of consciousness, that achievement is not an option.

I think the question is what do we do about affirmative action programs now, given our imperfect society and a government that has failed to adequately fund early childhood education and other programs that would give every child an equal chance to succeed.

I say we keep the programs in place for university admissions until the underlying problems are resolved. Only then will we not need them anymore.