Rethinking Quotas.

Affirmative action, which relies upon race- or gender-based preferences in school admissions, public hiring, and public contracting decisions for an institution, suffered a major defeat in the 1990s. California voters passed Proposition 209 in November 1996, making the state the first in the nation to bar state-sponsored affirmative action programs. After extensive legal battles, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the case that ruled that the law did not violate the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment. Also in 1996, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, Louisiana, struck down an affirmative action admissions policy at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin. That decision effectively banned race-based admissions at state-run schools in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, the three states that came under the jurisdiction of the appeals court.

Resegregation.

President Bill Clinton at the commencement address of the...