Crystal Hill of Indiana University has written a new post for The College Fix which is well worth your time.

I Don’t Need Affirmative Action To Succeed – And Neither Do You

OPINION: How can we truly move toward racial equality if we are treated as less than capable?

The Supreme Court recently ruled affirmative action is unconstitutional. Right on cue, the decision was lamented as a blow to racial equality. Some even accused the Supreme Court of racism.

After the decision, a peer wrote an op-ed in my school newspaper – Indiana University’s Daily Student– in support of affirmative action, paraphrasing President Lyndon Johnson who once said:

“You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say you are free to compete with all the others, and still just believe that you have been completely fair.”

Perhaps that sentiment was once relevant. It’s not anymore.

As much as I appreciate liberals’ concern for the welfare and success of black Americans, we are not hobbling around with crippled feet. We’re smart, capable, and successful. Yes, we need opportunities, just like every American! But opportunity and racial preferences are not the same thing.

Opportunity gives a chance to a qualified, capable individual. Preference grants someone favor. I am grateful for every opportunity I have been afforded in my life, but I don’t need to be coddled as if I am unable to succeed without special attention. Just look at Kwasi Enin, an African American high school student with a whopping 5.0 GPA who got accepted into every Ivy League college – a feat only achieved by few.

As black students, being treated as a special class of citizens is the worse thing that could happen, because we will not be held to the same standards as our white peers. The most relevant example is the ‘I,Too’ movement happening at different universities, in which minority students write down racial experiences they have had, whether negative or positive, as a response to the lack of diversity at their school.