Libertarian Rand Paul, the Republican nominee for a Kentucky U.S. Senate seat, stirred the race relations pot last week when he made supposedly controversial statements about the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Paul said that although he would have voted for the law and doesn’t support repealing it, he takes issue with the section that prohibits private businesses from discriminating on the basis of race.
In other words, Paul doesn’t believe the federal government should tell private businesses who to serve. It comes down to constitutionally protected freedom of association. Instead of federal government interference, economics and public pressure would provide better incentives to private entities to change their policies.
A. Barton Hinkle, writing in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, touches on what is acceptable and unacceptable discrimination. The consensus seems to be, if you believe mainstream media, that minority-based scholarships, set-asides, and other forms of preferential treatment, for example, are acceptable forms of discrimination; refusing to serve blacks is unacceptable.
“What about the scholarships offered exclusively to racial minorities — such as the Ford Foundation’s Diversity Fellowships, the Southern Regional Education Board’s Doctoral Scholars Program, the University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, and the literally thousands of others like them? If Paul is flatly wrong, then those programs, which perpetuate private — and even public — racial discrimination, should be outlawed.”
I suppose it comes down to invidious (harmful, injurious) discrimination, versus innocuous (inoffensive) discrimination. Although discriminating on the basis of race and sex is illegal, the courts have applied different levels of scrutiny to each. As expected, race receives the highest level of scrutiny under judicial review, while sex merits only intermediate. Discriminating against people based on their membership in a racial group just strikes people as odious, considering America’s history of slavery and Jim Crow.
Almost everyone would agree that racial discrimination against blacks is wrong. Why doesn’t racial discrimination against whites or Asians merit the same concern? A blacks-only scholarship is a relatively minor form of discrimination to preferences proponents, but it’s still racial discrimination. Everyone who is not black is excluded from applying for the scholarship.
The government may not do it; that much is clear. But should private businesses and private colleges have the freedom of association to serve or award scholarships to people based on their membership in a racial group?
If—and this is a big If—we don’t want the government to force blacks to sit in the back of a public bus, it’s hypocritical to support a public college offering money to only blacks or only whites or only Asians. Agree or disagree?
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