Racism in Institutions or Institutionalized Racism

The U.S. Department of Justice has changed its guidance on race and admissions policy in school (link here). I've quoted important sections of the DOJ's letter below. My reactions to the new DOJ policy are in blue.

December 2, 2011
Dear Colleague:
     Today, the United States Department of Education (ED) and the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) are jointly issuing guidance that explains how educational institutions can lawfully pursue voluntary policies to achieve diversity or avoid racial isolation

Achieving "diversity" and avoiding "racial isolation" are not enough of a social good to justify usurping the people's individual rights, especially the right of free association implicit in  the First Amendment.   Even the United Nations agrees--article 15.1 of the Rights of the Child recognizes the student's rights to free association. Free association means I, not my educational institution or the federal government, choose my own company.

within the framework of Titles IV and VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and current case law....

All of these laws were made to reinforce individual rights, not affirmative action programs favoring certain racial groups. Ironically, the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a reinforcement of the First Amendment, (again) implicitly recognizes the right to free association. According to the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School, the "government may also, generally, not compel individuals to express themselves, hold certain beliefs, or belong to particular associations or groups." (italics mine)

A color-blind society is the long-term goal, but the DOJ is going in the opposite direction.