Quote Of The Day - Sally Kern

"We have a high percentage of blacks in prison and that’s tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don’t want to study as hard in school? I’ve taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn’t study hard because they said the government would take care of them." - Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern, outdoing even herself. Oklahoma's GOP-dominated House has just voted 59-14 to place a ban on affirmative action on this year's ballot.

Maddow: It's Not True, Pat

BAM! Rachel Maddow Slams Pat Buchanan

Pat Buchanan on why 108 of 110 SCOTUS justices have been white:

Pat Buchanan: "White men were 100% of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100% of the people that signed the Declaration of Independence, 100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably close to 100% of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a country built basically by white folks, who were 90% of the nation in 1960 when I was growing up and the other 10% were African-Americans who had been discriminated against. That's why."

Rachel Maddow: "I would hope that you would see that picking 108 out of 110 white justices of the Supreme Court means that other people are not being appropriately considered... and the reason we have affirmative action is you recognize that the fact that people were discriminated against for hundreds of years means that you sort of gamed the system unless you give other people a leg up..."

SCOTUS Reverses Nominee Sonia Sotomayor On Affirmative Action

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a decision made by SCOTUS-nominee Sonia Sotomayor when she was an appeals judge, ruling that white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut had been discriminated against when they were passed over for promotions in favor of less qualified black firefighters. The case is expected to have broad impact on affirmative action cases nationwide.

In the firefighter case, the city said it acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities, but Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion that New Haven's action amounted to discrimination based on race against the white firefighters who were likely to be promoted. "No individual should face workplace discrimination based on race," Kennedy said. The ruling restricts, but does not eliminate, employers' ability to take diversity into account in employment decisions. But the ruling could make it harder for minorities to prove discrimination based solely on lopsided racial hiring or promotions. Sotomayor and two appeals court colleagues had ruled the city did the right thing in throwing out the test, and the Supreme Court reversal gave critics fresh ammunition two weeks before her Senate confirmation hearing.