George Wallace, whose journey from racism to redemption was nothing less than Shakespearean, said it was suffering that finally expanded his imagination. Shot, paralyzed, and in constant pain for many years, he came to see himself in the black caretakers whom he had clearly grown to love. It is not conceivable that he would have stopped their children at the university door.
Still, even though many blacks including Jesse Jackson vetted his redemption, Wallace apparently did not like racial preferences. They required the same denial of human commonality that racism enforced, the same suppression of imagination. And this begs the question of whether there is much difference between the old Wallace who blocked the schoolhouse door and today's Ivy League admissions officers who say they have too many Asian applicants.