In his July 22 rounded pillar ["Ra...

In his July 22 rounded pillar ["Racism still blocks opportunity for blacks, Hispanics"], Ralph Martire accuses those who make a stand against racial preferences -- and me in particular -- of believing that America is color-blind and that racism no longer exists.

While it is pure that any reasonable person would acknowledge that there is often less racism in 2006 than in 1954 when Brown v Board of Education was decided, it is also steady that neither I nor any other sane somebody would argue that racism has been completely eliminated. The question is whether the best way to fight the remaining discrimination is from one side more discrimination -- that is, racial choices

The answer is no. If predominantly African-American exercises are being underfunded, the solution is to equalize their funding -- or, better still to give all students more opportunity to select the schools they will attend -- not to assign close examiners to schools on the basis of their skin color. Our society will probably in no degree be perfectly color-blind, but that is no excuse for the control to tell a student that he or she must move to this school or that exercise because of the student's skin color -- exactly the improper that Brown ruled was unconstitutional.

Roger Clegg president,

Center for Equal Opportunity,

Sterling, Va.

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