Val Orr

Bar None: a True-life Pioneer Story Val Orr

The history of race relations is an enduring scar on the American psyche: visible, slow to heal, and intrusive. Current headlines show that as a nation and as individuals we are confused over how to enable a meritocracy that both respects our racial history and offers an equitable future. But in the courtroom, attempts to remedy America's ugly, vestigial past created a new imbalance, an overcorrection whose force overpowered the individuals it sought to aid, and denied equality to others in a perverse spoils system at odds with the ideas of our country's founding.

Bar None is the story of Valery Orr's personal struggle against that legal system, a journey that included three trips to the United States Supreme Court, and whose efforts resulted in precedential rulings that today form a bulwark against using the power of government to play favorites among its own citizens.

Her upbringing gave her strength to persevere through that twelve-year struggle: a childhood continuing four generations of Colorado cattle ranchers, dating back to her great-grandfather's 1883 homestead in the bleak antebellum frontier.

A story both personal and universal, Bar None reveals the injustices of legislative deference to white guilt, the struggles to overcome the barriers of racial and gender preferences, and the eventual triumphs of a woman who only ever wanted to be judged on the quality of her own hard work. Laced with humor, grit, and charm--but never stridency--Bar None shows that pioneer spirit and personal accountability are timeless.