Michael Barone has an excellent piece on the the 6h Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision to overturn a Michigan ballot initiative designed to enforce the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965. The initiative was passed in 2006 and supported by 58% of Michigan voters. It was a constitutional amendment proposed by Ward Connerly and particularly designed to end racial preferences in Michigan universities. Like most universities in American, Michigan schools support separate dorms for blacks, separate graduation ceremonies, separate fraternities – everything, as Michael Barone points out, but separate drinking fountains (which, no doubt, will be reserved for Muslims). In other words, so-called liberals and progressives have re-introduced the segregationist idea that was thought to be buried with the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s. The difference is that this segregation is desired by the former victims, while the former oppressors are too guilt-ridden and tongue-tied to express the outrage that would be suitable to this particular outrage. The racist appeal upheld by the court was filed by a group calling itself By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), the name itself trumpeting its fascistic modus operandi and anti-democratic agendas. What’s most troubling about this is that the Democratic Party is in basic sympathy with progressive racism and thus that the American consensus no longer includes a commitment to the values embodied in the once historic Civil Rights Acts.