Many readers are by now well aware of Mr. Obama's decision to confer what amounts to amnesty upon a certain class of illegal immigrants.

According to Mr. Obama, Congress didn't act (apparently settled immigration law doesn't constitute action), so Mr. Obama decided to unilaterally create what amounts to  legislation that never passed (the DREAM act.)  What an affirmative actor!

The constitutional infirmities of this decision are pronounced and involve the functional equivalent of the repeal of statutory schemes by the executive (for good summaries, click here and here).  

President Mr. Obama's justification for his unconstitutional policy edict presents conservatives with an opportunity to begin unwinding a grotesque policy that has, for many decades, been enormously destructive of individual liberty.  That policy is affirmative action.

In Mr. Obama's illegal immigration policy speech of June 15, he states:

They are Americans in their heart, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper. Put yourself in their shoes. Imagine you've done everything right your entire life, studied hard, worked hard, maybe even graduated at the top of your class, only to suddenly face the threat of deportation to a country that you know nothing about, with a language that you may not even speak.

That's what gave rise to the Dream Act. It says that if your parents brought you here as a child, you've been here for five years and you're willing to go to college or serve in our military, you can one day earn your citizenship.

Many things have been said in response to Mr. Obama's decision.  Some conservatives have gone so far as to call it "good policy," albeit while voicing objections to the lawless manner in which Mr. Obama proceeded. 

Presumably, many of those conservatives think the policy good at least in part because they agree with Mr. Obama's contention that some people (apparently, as long as they do not number among the unborn) should not be held accountable for the actions of their parents.  

So why do none of the aforementioned conservatives seem to be asking: Why should today's White youth be held accountable, via affirmative action measures, for Jim Crow laws?  Why should they be accountable, via affirmative action measures, for the enslavement perpetrated not by their parents but by people who acted several generations ago? 

How about today's Asian youth?  Why on God's green earth are they forced to limp around with the lead ball of affirmative action lashed to their ankles? 

And what, exactly, is the justification for extending affirmative action to Hispanics anyway? 

Also, has anyone inquired whether the beneficiaries of Mr. Obama's immigration pronouncement are now lawfully entitled (which, given Mr. Obama's proclivities, is admittedly not the same as asking whether they will in fact receive) dispensations such as affirmative action small business loans?

Can anyone at all explain how it makes sense to distribute government benefits, on the basis of "innocence," to those whom all parties admit are unlawfully here and then discriminate -- in spite of innocence -- against those whom all parties must admit are lawfully here? 

The administration's reasoning here is backward, is it not? 

Affirmative action, with monstrous injustice and throughout civil society, unconscionably impacts the liberty of people every bit as innocent as the persons referenced by Mr. Obama.  Indeed, it seems though wherever one looks, one encounters affirmative action programs invariably accompanied with mind numbingly specious cult-of-diversity drivel. 

Affirmative action is implemented in university admissions, government contracts, as well as in the employment practices of public and private institutions (many of which might be considered quasi-governmental given their regulatory and financial entanglement with government.)

In addition, two massive pieces of recent social and economic legislation (Obama Care and Dodd-Frank) incorporate prodigious amounts of affirmative action (quite likely even quotas.)

Moreover, Mr. Obama's Commerce Department is currently considering affirmative action for Arab Americans, plenty of whom are obviously Muslims, and who already enjoy substantial  economic parity in America.  What do you suppose Commerce will decide? 

And what about Mr. Eric Himpton Holder Jr.'s practice of employing a kind of affirmative action with respect to the enforcement of federal criminal laws (e.g., Mr. Holder doesn't think hate crime laws protect whites; consider also that he notoriously dropped the New Black Panther voter intimidation case and ignored New Black Panther threats against George Zimmerman while insinuating himself into the affair on behalf of Trayvon Martin.) 

What we are talking about with regard to Mr. Obama's immigration edict is a malignant constitutional violation the main justification of which should -- given the pernicious and self-serving hypocrisy displayed in regard to matters touching on race -- infuriate any defender of individual liberty. 

The national "discourse" on race is utterly dominated as to time, place, and subject matter by people who control the executive branch, a big chunk of the MSM, and much else besides.  Such people have the nerve to shrilly denounce as racists millions of Americans who dare to ask a question or two of a tyrant, who have capitulated to culturally decadent affirmative programs that by design discriminate on the basis of race, and who now demand nothing more -- and nothing less -- than equal protection of the law. 

It is time to ask: how much racism really remains in our society when these things are true, and from where does the racism that really remains very frequently emanate?

Mr. Obama's unconstitutional decision of June 15 kicked millions of Americans in the teeth in more ways than one.

Jason Kissner, Ph.D., J.D. is associate professor of Criminology at California State University, Fresno.  You can e-mail him at crimprof2010@hotmail.com