As a civil rights lawyer for the NAACP who challenged discriminatory voting laws in the Deep South and a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and currently at Harvard, Lani Guinier has sought solutions to racial injustice in the law and the courts.

But in the new century, a new way to approach race and power is called for that cannot be found in the courts, said Guinier, who delivered the 13th annual Thurgood Marshall Lecture at a dinner hosted by UCLA's Center for African American Studies April 8 at Covel Commons.

"The problem in the 21st century is to politically challenge the meta-narrative, to see the problem behind the problem," she said. The meta-narrative, the underlying story about race and power that runs implicit in the background of many issues, too often dictates to us that those in power deserve to keep it, and those who lack power are losers, she explained.

Questioning higher education's reliance on the SAT to determine who gets into the best public universities, she pointed out that test scores correlate highly with race and class/family income.

"We have created a 'story' in which the rules say those who are already affluent are somehow smarter and deserving of a state-subsidized education." Yet, she added, the remedy is not to create exemptions to this "testocracy." No one should be admitted solely on the basis of test scores, she pointed out.

Challenge the "story," she urged, that one's performance on a paper-and-pencil test, one that favors a fast-acting strategic guesser, is a valid measure of excellence.

Guinier, the first black woman to become a tenured professor at Harvard Law School, was honored by the center for her work as a civil rights advocate and legal scholar.