Affirmative Action: TAKING IT ALL BACK

If the importance of a historical event can be measured by the noise that surrounds it, then the University of California's Board of Regents could be sure it was making history last week. During 12 hours of passionate, sometimes ferocious debate, the board met to consider whether to end a 30-year effort to include more blacks, Latinos and Native Americans among the system's some 160,000 students. The meeting was interrupted by a bomb threat, punctuated by protests from radical feminists and brought to a halt when the Rev. Jesse Jackson linked arms with other protesters to sing We Shall Overcome. At...