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Peter Wood on what the Court has done:

Diversity is a compelling state interest. In these mild words the Supreme Court has effectively amended the U.S. Constitution. We now live in a nation where the highest court has endorsed the principle of group rights. The "diversity" in question is the idea that Americans are properly seen in relation to each other as members of racial and ethnic groups, and not as individuals who have equal rights before the law ...

I can't help but think that the transformation of America into a regime of group rights has only just begun. The danger of hereditary groups pursuing their interests as organized factions � the danger that so worried Madison and that deeply informs our Constitution � has been waved away by the Court. Don't worry, the Court says, we can have the benefits of racial categorization to correct our inequities, and then we will retire those categorizations in 25 years or so when they are no longer needed. But factions are interest groups, which are not known for fading away when you supply them with government incentives. No, the social divisions of diversity are here to stay, along with their inherent nastiness.

This Court has fertilized and watered the seeds of discord. We are going to see at least a generation more of people mis-defining themselves as members of groups rather than as individuals, and the groups themselves competing ever more viciously for the spoils. And that's where we are. The Court has not upheld affirmative action. Rather, it has legitimated the politics of racial and identity-group faction.

Peter Wood is the author of Diversity: The Invention of a Concept.