Today’s Anti-Affirmative Action opinion issued by the U.S Supreme Court is a dark victory for extremists. A departure from the values embodied in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution which supported the executive orders of President Kennedy in March 1961 and President Johnson in September 1965. This ruling declares that all men and women are not created equal and advances the agenda of supremacist ideology. More irreverently, it undermines the sacrifices, lynchings, assassinations, and struggles of those who paid such a high price for freedom and civil rights.

In view of the severe damage racism has done to America’s progress, this decision cannot be justified. Since slavery, and until this day, policies and practices of disenfranchisement, exclusion and suppression have resulted in generational poverty, mass incarceration, and chronic socio- economic disparities.

Admit it! Affirmative Action was created out of moral necessity, to correct the immoral and dehumanizing effects of racist public policies of our nation’s past. Affirmative action doesn’t give Blacks and other minorities an advantage. It only helps with access to opportunities to be fairly considered based on merit. However, many studies still prove that Blacks and minorities with equal or greater scores and capabilities are more often denied and rejected based solely on race and ethnicity. Why can’t we acknowledge that long before Affirmative Action was a law, whites benefited from an unwritten code of affirmative action.

It’s time out for using the too broadly defined term “woke agenda” as a cover up for racial bias and as an excuse for ignoring systematic discrimination and complex constructs of oppression. Disparities in income, education, healthcare, housing, and wealth are connected to the history of racism in this country.

To this point, Justice Katanji Brown Jackson writes, “The takeaway is that those who demand that no one think about race (a classic pink-elephant paradox) refuse to see, much less solve for, the elephant in the room – the race-linked disparities that continue to impede achievement of our great Nation’s full potential.” Simply stated, the reasons affirmative action was created still exist today!

By succumbing to fears related to demographic shifts, the SCOTUS decision on affirmative action takes us backwards by years. It demonstrates a lack of moral courage and the need for a God enlightened consciousness. All Americans will pay the price for legalizing injustice.