October 2009

diversity…Ohio State University (OSU) intends to cast a “deeper and wider net” to admit more black students. Does this mean the school will lower standards to admit more black students? The former is commendable; the latter is known as racial preferences.

OSU is reaching out to black students in 15 inner-city high schools in select cities to bring diversity to the campus. (Source) Not a bad idea. How the idea is executed will determine whether it’s bad.

Admissions officers will facilitate the process by helping prospective students file applications, and OSU is waiving the application fee. According to the article, the school will work with students “with high academic abilities…” Excellent! “…and aspirations.” Hmmm…is aspirations code for racial preferences?

The percentage of black freshmen at OSU dropped after the Supreme Court restricted race-based admissions in 2003, and the school presumably is looking for ways to attract blacks without lowering standards or discriminating against non-blacks. (The presumption probably is unwarranted, but I’m giving OSU the benefit of the doubt.) But OSU offers race-based scholarships. Doesn’t that run afoul of the law?

The Supreme Court decided two racial preferences cases in 2003. In Gratz v. Bollinger, the court held that the University of Michigan’s racial quota admissions system wasn’t narrowly tailored to achieve the desired skin deep-only diversity, and this use of race (point system) violated the Equal Protection clause. In other words, schools may use race to admit students, as long as the process is narrowly tailored, whatever that means. In Grutter v. Bollinger, the court held that the University of Michigan’s law school racial preference policy was narrowly tailored to pass Equal Protection muster and furthered the “compelling interest” of the government to bestow racial diversity benefits upon students. To admit lesser qualified black students, the law school considers “soft variables” in addition to grades and scores.

Back to The Ohio State University. The school could attract more “underrepresented” minorities by offering scholarships based on socio-economic status rather than race. They’d achieve their racial diversity ends while helping all students, regardless of race. Right?

Naïve, I know. Idealistic, too.

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Ethnic Authenticity

by lbarber on 10/28/2009

in General

coconutWhat right-leaning “person of color” among us can’t relate to Ruben Navarrette’s latest column, Ugly Racial Litmus Test?

I’ve noticed a phenomenon articulated by John McWhorter in Authentically Black: Essays for the Silent Black Majority. He wrote about a “double consciousness” whereby blacks speak of empowerment and individual responsibility in private, but they play the victim in front of whites and constantly remind them of America’s “racist” ways. Whites, says McWhorter, must be kept “on the hook.”

The black person who refuses to hold this attitude faces “intra-racial” charges of self-hater, hater of black people, and the like. Ironically, the racial authenticity of the black person who opposes lowering standards for blacks and insists blacks can and should compete against everyone also is questioned.

The Hispanic Navarrette faces similar charges. “Some people of color have this ridiculous and destructive habit of judging each other’s racial and ethnic authenticity,” he writes. “It’s both comical and sad, since the people who do it often have deep insecurities about their racial and ethnic credentials.”

OreoNavarrette, who says he opposes lowering standards for racial minorities, has been called a sellout, a Republican thug, a coconut (similar to “Oreo”), and a fake Hispanic “all, no doubt, to the delight of white liberals who prefer that Latinos like me refrain from thinking for ourselves.”

Navarrette mentions a CNN segment in which Syracuse University professor Boyce Watkins referred to FOX News analyst Juan Williams as a “happy Negro.” I had the misfortune of being the person Watkins was sparring against during that segment. He purportedly was upset because Bill O’Reilly made a comment on his radio show about how well-behaved patrons were in a black-owned restaurant, where he dined with Al Sharpton. A media storm ensued, and O’Reilly was called ignorant and a racist.

Detractors tend to leave out the conversation’s context. O’Reilly and Juan Williams were discussing the contrast between how television plays up negative stereotypes about blacks and what O’Reilly experienced in the restaurant. He made the point that whites who don’t interact much with blacks may believe all or most blacks play to type.

Out of the entire conversation, this sentence stirred up the media storm: “There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, ‘M-Fer, I want more iced tea.’”

I agreed to appear on CNN to criticize the media-created storm, not necessarily to defend O’Reilly. After Watkins made his “happy Negro” remark, I promptly admonished him and accused him of doing the same thing he’d accused O’Reilly of doing.

But in the scheme of things, it doesn’t matter. People will believe what they want to believe and say what they want to say. The best way to deal with the name-calling is to develop a very thick skin. If you strongly believe your principles and values are right, and you feel compelled to share them, you’ll need courage to face the consequences.

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Arnold SchwarzeneggerCalifornia legislators ought to carry a copy of the state constitution in their pockets and refer to it when writing laws. It’s a useful guide, laying out what the people have a right to do and what the government shall not do. For example, Article I, Section 31 reads in part:

“The State shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”

Thirteen years ago, 54 percent of voters passed Proposition 209, which added this language to the state’s constitution. But legislators either are unaware or they just don’t care. The latest attempt to circumvent the law is requiring race- and sex-based quotas in contracting. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who swore to uphold the constitution, signed into law a bill that directs state departments to award government contracts to the lowest responsible bidder subcontracting 15 percent of the work to minority-owned businesses and five percent to female-owned businesses. The contractor who fails to do so will be rejected, even if he’s the lowest bidder.

Read the rest at Townhall.

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childA teacher named Patrick Welsh, frustrated by his all-black class’s performance on a test, asked, “Why don’t you guys study like the kids from Africa?” (Source)

Bold, yes? That’s what frustration can do to you. One student said, “It’s because they have fathers who kick their butts and make them study.” Another said, “You ask the class, just ask how many of us have our fathers living with us.”

According to Welsh, no one raised his/her hand.

Speculating about why racial preferences exist isn’t brain surgery. Whether arguing for compensatory justice or skin deep-only diversity, the truth is that in 2009, racial preferences exist because generally, blacks score lower on standardized tests than everyone else.

Embarrassed and probably feeling a little guilty, people use all kind of justifications for lowering standards to accommodate blacks. Before we can begin to tackle the issue, however, we must understand that family structure impacts performance.

“My students knew intuitively that the reason they were lagging academically had nothing to do with race, which is the too-handy explanation for the achievement gap in Alexandria,” Welsh writes in the Washington Post. “And it wasn’t because the school system had failed them. They knew that excuses about a lack of resources and access just didn’t wash at the new, state-of-the-art, $100 million T.C. Williams, where every student is given a laptop and where there is open enrollment in Advanced Placement and honors courses. Rather, it was because their parents just weren’t there for them — at least not in the same way that parents of kids who were doing well tended to be.”

The kids admit what academics try to avoid. Children with no father in the home perceive the lack of discipline and respectful fear an authoritative male instills. I agree with Welsh to a certain extent. He believes focusing on race is too simple, and that family support and involvement are important. And focusing on race can stigmatize black students, but it can’t be ignored. Three quarters of black babies in the U.S. are born into fatherless homes. Black students disproportionately are without residential fathers. For better or for worse, race must be part of the discussion.

It’s not the children’s fault. The blame rests solely on the parents. It will take a sub-cultural shift away from a 75 percent out-of-wedlock pregnancy rate toward stable, two-parent (preferably married) homes to improve the condition of these chidlren. As the article notes, school superintendents “have little control” over these issues.

What can the government do about fatherlessness? Practically speaking, nothing. Individuals must turn the tide.

Addendum: The Center for Equal Opportunity’s Roger Clegg blogs:

“Of course, [Patrick Welsh is] not alone, and there are more and more nonconservatives who are coming around to this view. Problem is, the problem isn’t getting any better. And it is still the case that this problem is unique among social pathologies, in that — unlike crime, drug abuse, dropping out of school, etc. — there remain a nontrivial number of folks who don’t see the problem as a problem at all.”

John Rosenberg of Discriminations echoes my view about the role race plays in this scenario, again, for better or for worse:

“The color of a father’s skin does not cause his absence from his family, nor does the color of a mother’s skin determine how strict she is about homework. Still, Welsh goes overboard in attempting to dissociate race altogether from the dysfunctional educational behavior he observes, if for no other reason than that there the percentage of black children in single-parent families is three times higher than whites. It is true that damaged families, not race, stack the deck against black kids raised in single families, but it is not true that their difficulty ‘has nothing to do with race.’”

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Black New Haven Firefighter Sues

by lbarber on 10/19/2009

in Judiciary

firefightersJust when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…

A black firefighter in New Haven, Connecticut, said the scoring on the promotions test (the same one at issue in Ricci v. DeStefano) was unfair. (Source)

As you may recall, the city of New Haven threw out the results of a promotions test because no blacks scored high enough to qualify. The city claimed that had it certified the test results, black firefighters likely would have sued under the disparate impact theory. In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled against the city, holding that New Haven violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act when it discarded the results.

New Haven’s disparate impact lawsuit fear is confirmed. Michael Briscoe is suing city hall, claiming the test had a disparate impact on blacks. He contends that giving more weight to the written part of the test over the oral is a disadvantage to blacks. The written portion of the test is weighted 60 percent; the oral 40 percent. Briscoe scored higher on the oral than any other test taker. Good for him, but he scored too low on the written portion.

“Had the ratio of the sections been switched, Briscoe would have been one of the top candidates, according to the lawsuit.”

But the ratio hadn’t been switched. Briscoe loses.

Speaking only for myself, personally, me, and no one else, such a suit is embarrassing, as was the previous suit before the Supreme Court. Never would I claim, implicitly or explicitly, that blacks shouldn’t be expected to score well on written civil service tests or held to the same standard as everyone else. Call it pride.

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Court: Race-Based Scholarships Unconstitutional

October 15, 2009

Thirteen years after California amended the state constitution to bar the government from discriminating against or preferring individuals or groups in admissions, contracting, and hiring, on the basis of race and sex, courts still are eradicating discriminatory provisions from the code. Proposition 209 passed with 54 percent of the vote. Earlier this week, Sacramento Superior [...]

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Ward Connerly Goes to Arizona

October 14, 2009

The American Civil Rights Institute‘s Ward Connerly is headed to the University of Arizona to talk about the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative (AzCRI) on October 28, from 4-5:30 p.m. See this page for more details. The 2008 effort to add AzCRI to the state ballot failed after the campaign ran out of time to validate [...]

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Asian Discrimination at Elites

October 12, 2009

Americans of Asian descent account for about 12 percent of California’s population, yet they account for 40 percent of all undergraduates at the University of California at Los Angeles, 43 percent at Berkeley, 50 percent at San Diego, and 54 percent at Irvine. The American Civil Rights Institute‘s (ACRI) Ward Connerly has written about UC’s [...]

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Navy Professor Bruce Fleming Alleges Retaliation

October 12, 2009

Last summer, I blogged about Professor Bruce Fleming, a Naval Academy professor who exposed the school’s two-tiered, race-based admissions scheme. An excerpt from Fleming’s article: “A vote of ‘qualified’ for a white applicant doesn’t mean s/he’s coming, only that he or she can compete to win the ‘slate’ of up to 10 nominations that (most [...]

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Grutter Revisited

October 8, 2009

Edward Blum examines the six-year old Supreme Court case, Grutter v. Bollinger, where the court barred racial quotas but allowed some racial considerations in admissions in the name of skin deep-only diversity. A similar case in Texas is winding its way through the system. If it reaches the country’s highest court, Grutter’s “fuzzy” law may [...]

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