Affirmative Action Ruling

The U.S. Supreme Court decision validating affirmative action for women was a particularly abhorrent one, and it’s a shame that your editorial (March 26), “Justice Is Served--Again,” didn’t see it for what it really is--a return to discrimination in the workplace, but this time against white males.

We all learned as schoolchildren that “two wrongs don’t make a right.” There is no amount of past discrimination that could ever justify instituting a current form of discrimination.

The Times’ use of high-minded language sounds fine on paper, but tell that to the guy who loses out on a promotion to a less-qualified person because that person “happens to be a female” and he “happens to be a male.” Does this sound very fair to you?

Shouldn’t merit be the criteria of hiring and promotion, rather than gender or race? I thought that’s what this social “progress” was all about.

I remember reading in my history book that in the early days of our country, employers hung placards outside their companies that read “No Irish Need Apply.” With a few small changes in the wording, I think we may have come full circle.

RONALD GRACEN

Van Nuys