Analysis: Supreme Court delays a final showdown over affirmative action

The Texas affirmative action dispute is the first of two Supreme Court cases to be decided this week that deal with the limits of government action to counteract the legacy of state-sponsored racial discrimination. The high court could decide as early as Tuesday an Alabama case challenging key provisions of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. Both cases deal with a sticky political and legal question: A half-century after Congress ended American Apartheid, can the federal government treat Southern states and white students differently than others in the name of remedying past wrongs?