Kathryn Lopez of National Review interviewed the American Civil Rights Institute‘s Ward Connerly on Inauguration Day.
Connerly notes that when he and his wife were married, interracial marriage was outlawed. He knows what Barack Obama’s parents went through. To see the product of an interracial marriage become president of the United States is indeed historic.
“Being colorblind doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t see color; it means that you discard its influence when you see it,” Connerly said. “I have been roundly criticized by blacks for over a decade as being naive about this, as they assert the inherent racism of Americans. I gloat, in this instance, to say that they were wrong.”
Lopez asks Connerly, “What’s your wildest dream about Barack Obama?”
“That he will say, ‘My fellow Americans, Ward Connerly is right about race preferences being a violation of all that is good about our beloved nation. Therefore, today, I am issuing an Executive Order that will require all federal agencies and all of those who receive federal funds to obey the law of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.’”
I’d pay good money to hear that, Mr. Connerly!
The Department of Justice, charged with enforcing the law and defending the interests of the United States, has filed suit against the city of Gary, Indiana for discriminating against white applicants in favor of black applicants for emergency medical technician (EMT positions.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The department alleges that six white applicants sought EMT positions and were placed on a hiring list. The city ended up hiring only black applicants, although the six white applicants ranked higher than the lowest-ranked black applicant who received a job offer.
The city’s attorney claims it’s geographical, not racial. The list on which the white applicants appeared was prepared while Scott King was mayor, but the new mayor didn’t recognize the list.
“We hire not on the basis of any race, but on the basis of residency,” said Hamilton Carmouche.
Would Carmouche have us believe the city hired only blacks because they live in the city and skipped over white applicants because they don’t live in the city? Quite a jarring and entirely avoidable coincidence, if you ask me.
by lbarber on 01/29/2009
in General
It seems every other week there’s a news article or report about how American schools are becoming “increasingly segregated.” What’s happening is that people are making the choice to move to areas with better government schools, putting their kids in private schools, or opting to home-school. At least for now, people have the right to move wherever they want and for whatever reasons.
Inevitably, those who are financially unable to move to neighborhoods with better schools and can’t afford private schools or home-schooling get left behind. What is the government’s role in these situations? During the civil rights movement, the people fought for and won the right to be treated as first-class citizens. The government dismantled decades worth of Jim Crow laws and struck racial segregation from the books. Should the government now coerce people to integrate?
The Civil Rights Project at the University of California released a report that shows blacks and Hispanics are “more separate from white students than at any time since the civil rights movement and many of the schools they attend are struggling.” (Source)
What role should the government take, if any, in so-called voluntary segregation? Should we be concerned about racial segregation per se or only government-mandated segregation?
So-called residential segregation is not illegal or immoral. It’s one thing if a landlord or realtor or mortgage company discriminates against someone on the basis of race. It’s quite another if people choose to live in certain areas and around certain people. As long as the government isn’t doing the segregating, it shouldn’t be an issue.
One consequence of residential segregation is that some schools will contain a larger number of low-performing students. As the article notes, these schools tend to have weaker teachers, and a higher percentage of kids from low-income homes and for whom English is a second language.
Should we just say, “That’s life,” and be done with it?
Download the 33-page (PDF) “Reviving the Goal of an Integrated Society.”
More brilliance from the Center for Equal Opportunity‘s Roger Clegg as he goes head-to-head in a comment thread with Jay Rosner, responding to his convince-me-racism-doesn’t-matter straw man:
“[N]o one believes that racial discrimination has vanished, that race does not matter. But there are better ways to fight it than giving preferential treatment to individuals who are more privileged than those being discriminating against (as President-elect Obama acknowledged), and it is not so systemic that it justifies institutionalized discrimination in the other direction. The playing field is not level, but there are plenty of folks of all colors at both ends. Enforce the civil rights laws; provide scholarship and other aid for those of all colors.
…
“[E]ven if there are some dubious benefits to the use of racial preferences, they are overwhelmed by the costs: It is personally unfair, passes over better qualified students, and sets a disturbing legal, political, and moral precedent in allowing racial discrimination; it creates resentment; it stigmatizes the so-called beneficiaries in the eyes of their classmates, teachers, and themselves, as well as future employers, clients, and patients; it fosters a victim mindset, removes the incentive for academic excellence, and encourages separatism…”
Clegg and Rosner are discussing an article about an October 2007 study, which concluded that eliminating race preferences would result in a 35 percent decrease in minority enrollment at competitive schools and a lesser decrease at all colleges. See the original exchange on this Inside Higher Ed comment thread. Great stuff, Mr. Clegg.
On November 4, 2008, 58 percent of Nebraska voters barred their state and local governments from preferring and discriminating against individuals based on race in hiring, contracting, and admissions.
After the governor certified the results, Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative executive director Doug Tietz said, “The voters overwhelmingly supported the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative and now Nebraska’s state motto ‘equality before the law’ is officially the law of the land.”
As expected, the new law was challenged in court. Last week, a Nebraska court upheld the ban. Ruling against a group called Nebraskans United, Judge Karen Flowers wrote that the facts didn’t present any evidence of fraud, as the group claimed. (Source)
“The most common phrase in the judge’s ruling is, ‘there is no evidence,’” Tietz said. “It is time for the opposition to put to rest their baseless allegations and acknowledge the people’s decision to end race and gender preferences in public contracting, public education, and public hiring”
Will Nebraskans United end up appealing Judge Flowers’s ruling? Most likely. They probably won’t prevail, since the lower court found no evidence of fraud, but that won’t stop groups from trying to overturn the vote.
Protecting and upholding the will of the people is no small task, is it?
