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.
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.
Affirmative action, an idea advanced by President John F. Kennedy (see Executive Order 10925), provides an opportunity for qualified women and minorities to be considered for job vacancies. Each candidate is assessed based on the same standard.
Race and sex preferences exist when women and minorities with lesser qualifications are assessed based on a different standard (often lower) than the rest of the candidates. The goal is to fill a quota, expressed or implied, in the name of diversity.
West Virginia University (WVU) is searching for a new president. According to this story, the search committee has been asked to “keep an eye out for female and minority candidates.”
Although the university’s faculty is “somewhat diverse already,” it has never had a black or female president. Naturally, people assume bias. The problem, of course, is there’s usually no evidence of bias. Simply hiring the most qualified person for the job, without regard for skin color or sex, should be the goal in any case.
If WVU is extending its search to include more qualified minorities and women in the pool of candidates, it has taken an affirmative step to increase representation from these groups. If the university is treating black and female candidate differently by virtue of their race and sex for whatever reason, that’s discrimination.
Among those who oppose race preferences, you think you’d find coaches of sports teams. But according to this story, coaches at the University of Colorado (UC), Colorado State University, and the University of Northern Colorado say the proposed ban on race preferences is a “threat to college students.”
The article quotes Jeff Bzdelik, former NBA coach and current basketball coach at UC, who says Colorado should be increasing “opportunities” for blacks students, and he believes Amendment 46 would eliminate those opportunities.
First, if “opportunities” means being admitted under less rigorous standards because of skin color, Bzdelik is right. Amendment 46 seeks to eliminate double standards, discrimination, and preferences.
Second, I wonder how Bzdelik feels about race preferences as applied to athletics? I’m almost certain CU’s basketball team is predominantly black, with a few white tokens thrown in. What if all college sports teams in Colorado had to maintain a balance of colors, as it were, to comply with politically correct notions of diversity? Bzdelik would have to eliminate black players to make room for whites and Asians.
I’ll go out on a limb to say Bzdelik would not like it, nor would any other basketball or football coach in Colorado’s universities. There’s a reason blacks tend to dominate sports teams like basketball and football, and it’s performance-based. Imagine a college telling the coach he must reduce the number of blacks on the team, regardless of performance, for the sake of diversity, and increase the number of whites and Asians, regardless of performance.
Ridiculous? In a way, but why shouldn’t Jeff Bzdelik and other college coaches be held to the same standards as admissions offices? After all, diversity is a noble thing to which we all should strive to acquire, is it not?
(By the way, I couldn’t find a group photo of the basketball or football teams on any university’s web site.)
Given the divisiveness of race and our human inability to rise above it, it is imperative that the government adopts a colorblind policy.
Let’s lay it on the table: Some people will vote for Barack Obama because he’s black, and some will vote against him because he’s black. Many more will vote for or against him based on his values and policy positions. Regardless, no matter how hard we try to achieve so-called colorblindness, the more we fail. Why? Because we can’t ignore differences. What we can do, however, is not allow those differences to divide us. A super-human achievement!
Being colorblind is a worthy goal, though it’s not the point. The point is that government policy should be colorblind. That is, government should be banned from using race to make decisions about whom to hire for public employment or admit to public colleges and universities.
We may be born “innocent,” but sooner or later, the prejudices of those around us rub off. As we mature, we learn to think for ourselves and develop our own ideologies. Even then, our perceptions may not be grounded in reality and may not adhere to the principle of equal opportunity for all. This is where the government takes up the slack.
“Governments are instituted among men,” Thomas Jefferson declared, “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Government, which is necessary for the very existence of a civilized society, must strive to keep in check the actions of everyone in that society. The government’s function isn’t to control people’s lives, but to allow people to exercise those inalienable rights: to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness, without interference from others.
Colorblind government policy is that which sees no differences among citizens with regard to the skin color of its citizens. We may hold prejudices for whatever reason, but those prejudices are held in check by a government whose duty is to protect everyone’s rights. An individual is free to think whatever he wants to think about me because I’m black, but neither he nor my government may interfere with my rights because I’m black.
Ward Connerly was on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” today to discuss anti-race preferences initiatives. Connerly appeared opposite Shanta Driver, director of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigration Rights By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), a group dedicated to maintaining lowered standards for women and minorities.
Connerly explained why initiatives failed in states like Arizona and Missouri. Despite BAMN’s “deplorable tactics” to stop the measures, as Connerly notes, these initiatives didn’t succeed because the American Civil Rights Initiative ran out of time to gather signatures. State initiatives will appear on ballots in Colorado and Nebraska. Watch the video here.
Connerly also appeared on NRO TV’s “Uncommon Knowledge” with the Hoover Institution’s Peter Robinson. Connerly will be featured in a five-segment series. Check out the first segment. He explains the difference between affirmative action and race preferences. The two are not synonymous.
The American Civil Rights Institute’s (ACRI) Jennifer Gratz, plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, Gratz v. Bollinger, defends Ward Connerly as pro-race preference proponents attack his character, because they cannot win on the merits.
(Their concern is well-grounded. ACRI found that 71 percent of Nebraskans say they support an amendment that would end government preferences in hiring, contracting, and admissions.)
The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC) is one organization resorting to ad hominem, with BISC’s Kristina Wilfore leading the charge. Gratz says such groups have all but given up defending race preferences and instead focus on personal attacks. While ACRI has chosen to ignore such attacks in the past, the organization decided to come forward because “the public needs to understand what we are up against and the despicable tactics that these groups will use…”
Both sides should focus on debating the issue of government preferences rather than attacking those involved in the debate. Gratz is right. The other side is becoming increasingly desperate and disingenuous.
The views and opinions expressed on this blog do not necessarily reflect those of the American Civil Rights Institute. This blog is written and maintained by La Shawn Barber. E-mail her at lashawnbarber@gmail.com
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.
Ward Connerly was on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” today to discuss anti-race preferences initiatives. Connerly appeared opposite Shanta Driver, director of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigration Rights 
