by lbarber on 10/30/2008
in General
According to the National Association of Scholars (NAS), it isn’t. The 2006-2007 Sonoma County Superior Court investigated allegations that Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC) was breaking the law by considering race when hiring. The jury found evidence that supports “to some degree, allegations that some candidates may have received preferential treatment.” Download the 10-page report in PDF.
Naturally, SRJC denied these allegations.
In 1996, 54 percent of California voters chose to amend the constitution to bar state and local governments from discriminating against and granted preferences to anyone based on race and sex. SRJC is a state-supported institution.
The NAS has asked the Western Association of Schools not to accredit SRJC until it removes race as a factor when selecting candidates during the hiring process.
That’s what the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) wants to know. PLF, a public interest group that fights for individual rights, filed a California Public Records Act request for UCLA to release relevant information about its undergraduate applications process.
Attorney Joshua Thompson said, “PLF has been contacted by a number of students, parents, and UC faculty who suspect that undergraduate admissions at UCLA are not race- and sex-neutral, as required by Proposition 209.”
In 1996, 54 percent of California voters chose to amend the constitution to bar state and local governments from discriminating against and granted preferences to anyone based on race and sex. UCLA is a state-supported institution.
PLF requests that UCLA release undergraduate applications, including essays (with personal identifying info redacted), identities of application readers, scores given, documents that show why they admitted or denied each applicant, and other relevant information.
Color me jaded, because I know UCLA is considering race and sex when assessing applications, in violation of the law. PLF is attempting obtain the proof. After Proposition 209 became law, UCLA adopted a policy called holistic review, a poor disguise for race preferences.
According to a CBS4/Rocky Mountain News poll, 53 percent of registered Colorado voters support Amendment 46, which would put state and local governments out of the skin color business. (Source)
I suspect those who say they don’t support it don’t understand the issue. Amendment 46 will not end affirmative action, which doesn’t involve discrimination and preferential treatment. The measure would bar the government from treating people differently based on race and sex.
The Colorado Civil Rights Initiative’s Jessica Peck Corry told CBS4, “The time has come for the government to stop picking winners and losers based on race and gender. Colorado is a progressive state dedicated to equal opportunity and our equal opportunity programs should reflect that commitment.”
Melissa Hart, co-chair of No on Amendment 46, argues that the measure “uses language evocative of the civil rights movement, but it actually is an anti-civil rights measure,” yet she calls Ward Connerly a “carpetbagger,” language evocative of anti-Reconstructionists! On the civil rights movement point, she’s correct. The very thing black Americans fought against back then is still being done today, this time in favor of blacks and in the name of skin deep-only diversity. Government-sanctioned racial discrimination must be eliminated, no matter which group benefits.
Carpetbaggers, you may remember from history books, is a derisive term southerners gave to northerners who ventured below the Mason-Dixon line after the Civil War to establish order and to help freed slaves. By calling Connerly a carpetbagger, Hart intends to evoke similar derision. It’s ironic that she uses the language of people who not only wanted to keep blacks in bondage, but also wanted to keep the country divided. She’s so strongly opposed to Amendment 46 that she co-opts the language of pro-slavery southerners?
How progressive of you, Ms. Hart.
Addendum: Steven Willborn, dean of the University of Nebraska College of Law, called Roger Clegg an “outside agitator” for daring to study the law school’s admission policies. Outside agitators is what southerners call northerners who traveled south to help break down Jim Crow during the civil rights movement. Hmmm…I’m beginning to see a pattern.
One of the ways preference proponents rally opposition to measures like Amendment 46 is to use emotion-laden rhetoric.
“This anti-affirmative action measure will end summer science camp for girls!”
What Amendment 46 would do is prevent public funds from being used to sponsor events and support policies that discriminate against and grant preferential treatment to people based on race and sex. In that regard, Amendment 46 would prevent the use of tax dollars to grant preferential treatment to girls in summer science camp programs.
As Colorado Civil Rights Initiative president Jessica Peck Corry says, “The programs can still go on, they just can’t grant preferential treatment if they take state tax dollars.” (Rocky Truth Patrol)
Preferences proponent Melissa Hart, a University of Colorado law school faculty member, said: “If you say it has to be gender neutral or it can’t get public funding, either way, you’re eliminating the original program.”
If the program depends on tax dollars, Hart is correct. If the program ends, so be it. The point is that the government should not be using public funds to discriminate against people based on race or sex for any reason, not even to fund a summer science program for members of an underrepresented group.
I’m 99 percent certain, however, that plenty of private donors are more than willing to fund such programs.
(Photo source: Sally Ride Science Camps)
The “Bradley Effect,” also known as the “Wilder Effect,” is a phenomenon of the discrepancy between voter opinion polls and election results. Voters tell pollsters they’re undecided or that they’ll vote for the black candidate, but choose the white candidate come election day. Whites who don’t want to seem racist may say they’re voting for the black guy but have no intention of doing so.
In 1982, black candidate Tom Bradley lost the election for governor of California to a white Republican, despite leading in the polls. Something similar happened between Doug Wilder and Marshall Coleman in Virginia. Wilder won by less than half of one percent, despite poll numbers showing him leading Coleman by an average of nine points.
The so-called Bradley Effect has shown up in other contests. In 2006, exit poll numbers for Proposal 2 in Michigan — a measure that would bar the government from discriminating against and granting preferences to people based on race and sex – showed the race too close to call. Ultimately, it passed by a wide margin: 58 percent. Were white voters afraid to openly support the measure?
Blair Levin, former staffer for Tom Bradley, says the Bradley Effect is a myth. His guy lost “because an unpopular gun control initiative and an aggressive Republican absentee-ballot program generated hundreds of thousands of Republican votes no pollster anticipated,” not because of race. (National Journal)
Will the Bradley Effect manifest itself in the presidential race? Regardless, I believe Barack Obama will win. Such a victory would be less disappointing to me if it signaled the end of race preferences and America’s obsession with skin color. Unfortunately, it won’t.
