Supporters of Ward Connerly’s Civil Rights Initiative — which would end race-based affirmative action programs in Missouri — are increasing their efforts to solicit the 140,000 signatures necessary for a November ballot position.

The Kansas City Star blogs on the topic here. It’s amazing how much liberty they take in editorializing their coverage, by the way.

My favorite sentence: “Programs that could disappear include race-specific scholarships at public universities such as the University of Missouri-Kansas City [...]“

Reread that sentence again. Was a society that judged people based on the color of their skin one of the goals of Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement? Imagine if the University of Missouri offered scholarships to white students only. Or, if the University offers race-specific scholarships, then why not create race-specific bathrooms as well? How far we’ve fallen from the original ideals of civil rights.

And, of course, the thing that is most ironic about affirmative action to me is that its strongest supporters are often upper-middle-class families with “white guilt” — the same class of people that affirmative action programs are supposed to, in theory, protect minorities from in the first place.

Personally, I think that this comment on the Star’s blog says it best.