Despite a landmark Supreme Court ruling upholding the legality of the University of Michigan’s law school affirmative action program, affirmative action programs are coming under increasing attacks, sometimes with the complicity of the Justice Department.

A recent example involves a letter the Justice Department sent to officials at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale charging that three graduate fellowship programs designed to increase underrepresented women and people of color are unfair to Whites and males. The Justice Department said if the SIU programs are not terminated by Friday, it will sue the institution. University officials have requested a meeting and an extension to avert a legal showdown.

The three fellowships under attack are the Proactive Recruitment and Multicultural Professionals for Tomorrow, the Graduate Dean’s Program and the Bridge to Doctorate. University officials told the Daily Egyptian, the campus newspaper, that 129 such fellowships have been awarded since 2000, with 12 percent going to Whites. Most university fellowships are open to all students and make no effort to increase the presence of people of color on campus.

Less than 8 percent of Southern Illinois University’s 5,500 graduate students are Black or Latino.

The attacks on affirmative action are being led by Right-wing think tanks, notably the Center for Equal Opportunity, headed by Linda Chavez and based in Sterling, Va. It has filed complaints with the Justice Department against SIU and North Carolina State University.

Even more troubling than attacks on programs designed to end the under representation of people of color and women is the way that many universities have caved in without putting up a fight.

Roger Clegg, vice president and general counsel for the Center for Equal Opportunity, told the Daily Egyptian newspaper: “We have contacted hundreds of schools over the past few years about programs like this. The overwhelming majority have changed the programs after we contacted them.”

In other words, the think tank has been able to accomplish through threats what it could not achieve in the U.S. Supreme Court.

The attack on affirmative action extends beyond graduate fellowship programs.

Last year, Clegg testified before the Texas Senate Subcommittee on Higher Education to oppose even the 10 percent plan favored by President Bush. Under the program, the top 10 percent of each graduating class is guaranteed admission to the University of Texas.

The cruelest hoax is that the likes of Clegg are citing laws specifically designed to help African-Americans – the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin – to dismantle programs that, if successful, would close the gap between people of color and Whites.

In an effort to identify all race- and gender-conscious programs – presumably so that they, too, can be attacked – Clegg’s group has drafted what it calls a model “Racial and Ethnic Preference Disclosure Act” for states and the federal government to adopt.

The proposal for federal legislation would require annual reports from all institutions of higher education that receive federal funding.

Section 2 of the draft legislation states: “This report shall begin with a statement of whether race, color, or national origin is considered in the student admission process (if different departments within the institution have separate admission processes and consider race, color or national origin differently, then the report shall provide the information required by this report for each department separately).”

This is part of a larger campaign by the misnamed Center for Equal Opportunity to eliminate all programs that address racial inequality. It has compiled a 41-page list of legal provisions in every state that it finds objectionable.

Among them: an Alabama law that requires that half of the trustees of predominantly Black Alabama State University be African-Americans, an Illinois provision that requires that five of the nine members of a Women’s Business Ownership Council be female, a Kentucky law that requires that school board screening committees in communities where people of color constitute at least 8 percent be represented by at least one African-American committee member, and a Colorado law that insists that financial institutions holding state investment funds give priority for business loans to women and people of color.

Prodded by the Civil Rights Movement, the nation has made progress in reducing racial, ethnic and gender discrimination. However, that progress will come to an abrupt halt if right-wing groups are successful in their campaign to eliminate all race-, ethnic- and gender-conscious corrective programs.

Sadly, so-called progressives have failed to counter the Right-wing attack on affirmative action.