The role of race in assuring social justice is again squarely before the Supreme Court in a case whose full and revealing name is: Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corporation and United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO, v. Brian F. Weber, individually and on behalf of all other persons similarly situated.

Weber, a white unskilled steelworker, is Bakke’s analogue. The Steelworkers Union and Kaiser Aluminum are not the only forces against him. The United Auto Workers and the United Mine Workers, the National Education Association, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and assorted other unions are against him. The American Civil Liberties Union is against him. Even the United States government is formally aligned against him. On Weber’s side is the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (with some associated non-Jewish ethnic groups) and, according to repeated surveys, an overwhelming majority of the American population, including a majority of the black population.