The Supreme Court is currently looking into the constitutionality of a referendum to ban affirmative action from college admissions in Michigan, a decision that has civil rights activists up at arms.

As surprising as it may seem, I, a minority student, agree with the voters and would like to see affirmative action go.

Think of it this way: is it fair that students be denied admission to a school they qualify for simply because the school gave students of another race priority?

The answer is that it’s not fair, either to the student being denied or the student being admitted.

When affirmative action was first introduced through Executive Order 10925 in 1961, it was supposed to promote diversity and help minorities that would otherwise have been discriminated against. In promoting diversity, however, a new type of discrimination was created; this time against hard-working students.

In saying this, I’m reminded of an episode of the TV show George Lopez in which George was offered a better position than he initially had. Upon finding out that he was offered the position because of his skin color, George turned the offer down because he refused to take a job that was handed to him based on his race.

I feel the same way; I don’t want a handout. I want to be given a chance to prove myself based on my achievements.

Supporters of affirmative action would be surprised to find that removing the policy doesn’t have the negative impact they believe it does.

The state of California, for example, has banned affirmative action policies since Proposition 209 passed in 1996 and, despite an initial drop in enrollment, its colleges and universities are still diverse.

According to an article in the LA Times, enrollment rates of Black and Latino students across the UC system have nearly recovered to the levels they were before the affirmative action ban. Latino attendance at UCLA is up to 18.1 percent for the last year, which is comparable to 21.5 percent before ban.

While I believe that affirmative action needs to go, I will concede to the idea that maybe not every state is ready for such a change. California has historically been more tolerant than other states, a quality that has undoubtedly defined the success of students since Proposition 209.

Hopefully, in the near future, affirmative action and race won’t be issues anymore, and we’ll be able to judge students on their merits rather than the color of their skin.