Law Commons^™

Innocence And Affirmative Action, Thomas Ross

Vanderbilt Law Review

When we create arguments, when we act as rhetoricians, we reveal ourselves by the words and ideas we choose to employ. Verbal structures that are used widely and persistently are especially worth examination. Arguments made with repeated, almost formulaic, sets of words suggest a second argument flowing beneath the apparent argument. Beneath the apparently abstract language and the syllogistic form of these arguments, we may discover the deeper currents that explain, at least in part, why we seem so attached to these verbal structures.

Argument about affirmative action in the context of racial discrimination is particularly wrenching and divisive, especially …