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In the 1960s many Americans supported affirmative action. They seemed to recognize that blacks in particular had been subject to terrible historical crimes -- slavery and segregation -- and that some special measures needed to be taken, at least for a time, to help this group overcome the legacy of the past. These policies have been in place for a generation. They have done some good -- for instance, by accelerating the formation of a black middle class. Yet at the same time they have heightened race consciousness and given it the respectability of law. Moreover, other groups with much weaker historical claims -- such as women, Latinos, and homosexuals -- have climbed aboard the affirmative-action bandwagon, broadening the political coalition that sustains the regime of preferences but weakening its moral foundation. Who can explain why a nonwhite immigrant should get preference for a college seat, a job, or a government contract over a native-born white with stronger qualifications? Glenn Loury responds: "The ideals of liberty upon which the country was founded ... were surely compromised by the perpetuation of racial caste in American society until the mid-twentieth century. How we deal with the race issue indicates the k