I'm writing in response to Ross Hammersley's letter on the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative while also responding to all other articles printed about race/gender affirmative action ("Initiative is a step back for equality" SN 8/15). I am in total agreement that the treatment of African Americans in this country throughout history has been unfair and disheartening. What many African Americans have had to go through is something no one should ever have to face here in the land of the free.

With race/gender based affirmative action, though, it will occur more than it already has. Qualified individuals will be discriminated against because of the color of their skin and their sex.

How is this fair? Is it the fault of individuals today that slavery was created. No. Was slavery immoral and downright wrong? Yes. But why should someone who works so hard be turned away because of something that our ancestors did 250 years ago.

After stating this fact, some people might say that idea is racist (which it is not). If you think about it, allowing this amendment to pass will end some form of discrimination. That is the state sponsored discrimination which is race/gender based affirmative action.

All the MCRI wants to do is leave it up to voters to decide whether we should be judged by the color of our skin or by the content of our character, as the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said.

J.M. Wiggins
history junior