I was appalled for the second time in two months at the blindness of a Lantern column. After a frighteningly similar article in December by Joey Maresca, in Wednesday’s Lantern Andy Topetzes said in “No free rides in real world” that “we have a more diverse ethnic landscape on our college campuses than ever before.” Unfortunately for opponents of affirmative action wishing to celebrate diversity, affirmative action is one of the central reasons for that diversity.

There are, as Topetzes pointed out, no free rides in the real world. The trouble is that the ride costs something — opportunity first, and then hard work. What affirmative action does is precisely what Topetzes said it doesn’t — “level the playing field” for those students in poor economic or educational circumstances who simply cannot measure up to the achievement standards that students in better circumstances have met.

Topetzes said, “Affirmative action directly states that race determines the content of your mind.” I admittedly have not read the legislation that outlines affirmative action, but I would be delighted to read the portion that states this directly.

The point being missed is the reason Democrats (and others, unlike Topetzes) should “feel guilty about our forefathers’ actions.” That is why affirmative action exists; the disadvantages dealt to minority groups from slavery until now have yet to be adequately compensated for. We have to strive for equal opportunity, even if it means swallowing affluent arrogance and realizing that just once, we middle and upper middle-classers won’t be able to get exactly what we want.

Talk of “reverse discrimination” has to stop. Optimism might say that we will achieve equal access to education in our generation. Topetzes does not help the cause by saying, “Democrats should be focusing their criticism and our taxpayer resources on poorly funded inner-city schools and the children who are left behind.” Why are Democrats alone responsible? Republicans should be just as busy with the cause, and I assure you they are no less at fault than Democrats. Let’s stop making affirmative action a political cause and truly focus “on the real root of our problem.”

Nicholas Hetrick sophomore in English