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scholars and academicians, funded by corporate America, this
movement of neo-conservatives aimed its efforts at removing
government regulation from every aspect of our lives, and found a
handy hated target in civil rights.

While professing strong support for equal rights, these
neo-Bourbons opposed every tool devised to achieve that goal. They
discredited affirmative action, not only because it threatened
ancient skin privilege, but because it served as an easy symbol
of despised government intervention.

For these new racists, equal opportunity is a burden society
cannot afford to bear. Their less than subtle message is that
including blacks and women excludes quality.

The truth is that true equality requires an increase in
unwanted competition these new States' Righters cannot stand;
their old-boy networks, in academia or in industry cannot
tolerate federal imposition of equal rights.

The argued that the civil rights laws of the 1960s
eliminated all discrimination, that the playing field is now
level, that every contestant stands equal at the starting line.

That some contestants have no shoes, that others find their
legs gripped by heavy baggage from the past, and that an
advantaged few begin the race at the finish line is of no
consequence to these champions of the new order.

The movement today suffers not from its imagined excesses,
but from the lies and distortions of its opponents.

They tell us discrimination against minorities is not a
problem; society must protect itself from discrimination against