Washington Times on Thomas Perez
The Washington Times recently published an editorial about Thomas Perez, Maryland’s secretary of labor and President Barack Obama’s nominee for assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
Focusing on his record on illegal immigration and comments on racial preferences, the Times writes:
“[Perez] has served as president of the board of CASA de Maryland, an immigrant-advocacy organization known for taking several rather extreme positions. For instance, CASA has fought against keeping illegal immigrants from getting state drivers’ licenses. Mr. Perez himself has supported efforts to grant in-state tuition rates to undocumented immigrants. And he has been a strong proponent of giving preferential treatment to members of some races or ethnicities in admissions to schools to train health professionals…On that latter point, Mr. Perez argued that racial preferences could be used not just for ‘remedial’ purposes — not just to make up for past discrimination.”
Indeed, Perez believes medical schools should drop standards for black applicants, because he contends they are more likely to work in “underserved” communities than white doctors. Linda Chavez of the Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) tackles the topic of Perez’s strange ideas published in a law journal in 2006. An excerpt from her column:
“[Perez] cited a handful of studies purported to show that minority doctors are more likely to provide medical care to under-served poor minority populations than white physicians…He then leapt to the conclusion that the best way to improve access to medical care for underserved populations was to insist that medical schools use race or ethnicity in choosing which students to admit.
“In effect, Perez appears to be arguing for a form of medical apartheid in which minority patients should be served by minority doctors under the presumption that both groups benefit from this practice. The argument is both insulting and dangerous.”
Last month, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights called the president’s health care bill’s race-based preferential treatment provisions discriminatory and found that such efforts likely won’t reduce heath care disparities. Increasing access to high-quality doctors, regardless of race, “is the best way to mitigate such disparities.” (Source)
