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character.” Those words, and King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in general, captured the spirit of what the Civil Rights Movement was supposedly about. The complaint was not about American ideals but the failure to live up to the American ideal of a free nation under God.

King famously concluded that great speech, dreaming of the day “when all of God’s children, Black men and White men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we are free at last.”

But soon, the inspiration of God Almighty and freedom floated into the sky to be displaced on the ground with the cynicism and ambition of politics and political power.

The ideal of individual freedom and equal treatment under the law was displaced by the idea that justice is achieved through government power and social engineering.

A federal bureaucracy grew out of the 1964 Civil Rights Act — the Civil Rights Commission, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, the Office of Minority Business Enterprise, etc. — all empowered with understanding that discrimination in favor of certain racial groups was lawful and constitutional.

Then, in the early 1970s, it went beyond correcting the historic evil of slavery and the legacy of racism against African Americans to become in general about race and ethnicity.

In 1973, the Federal Interagency Committee on Education was directed to produce rules classifying Americans by race and ethnicity and it responded with five racial/ethnic categories: American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian or Pacific Islander, Black, White and Hispanic.

In polling done by Pew several months ago, 50% said they disapprove of colleges using race and ethnicity in their admission policy and 33% said they approve. However, among Blacks, 29% said they disapprove and 47% said they approve.

Unfortunately, King’s great dream of freedom, which inspired the Civil Rights Movement, has been lost in the hearts and minds of many Black Americans and eclipsed by social engineering.

What the Supreme Court has done is show that our Constitution embodies and codifies that dream.

We’ll all be better off for the court’s courageous decision against social engineering and for a nation of free citizens, treated equally under the law.

Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the weekly television show “Cure America with Star Parker.” To find out more about Star Parker and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www. creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS. COM