Barack Obama

Rachel Alexander on Obama-Era “Affirmative Action”

by lbarber on 03/16/2011

in Barack Obama,Diversity

Rachel  Alexander, a great lady I used to write for at Intellectual Conservative many moons ago, penned an article about the president’s dedication to racial preferences in government.

No doubt thinking about his own privileged upbringing, he went on record to say his daughters “should probably” be treated by admissions officers as the advantaged applicants they are, implying that his girls don’t need to have standards lowered for them. As for everyone else? I’ll let Rachel tell you:

“[I]n spite of a slight trend in high court decisions striking down affirmative action, and ballot initiatives spearheaded by Ward Connerly passing around the country banning affirmative action, the Obama administration has taken the opposite route, continuing to mandate and expand affirmative action policies.
…
“Obama is working with Democrats in Congress to implement more affirmative action. The Obamacare legislation contains race-based preferences. Contractors who demonstrate efforts to train individuals from underrepresented minority groups will receive preferences when applying for contracts from the Department of Health and Human Services. The federal stimulus funds also include preferences. Since the Recovery Act dollars come from the federal government, they are subject to federal law set-asides for “Disadvantaged Business Enterprises,” which include minorities and women.

“Two years ago, Obama rejected a proposed federal rule that would have reduced gender preferences for women in contracting. The reduction was proposed due to finding that women were only underrepresented in contracting agreements in four out of 140 recognized industries. Obama signed a spending bill instead that affirmed federal law requiring that at least five percent of federal contracts go to women-owned businesses. This goes against a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruling handed down just a few months earlier in 2008, which struck down a Defense Department rule that funneled billions of dollars annually into defense contracts for minority and women-owned firms.”

Rachel points out that most of the president’s unofficial “affirmative action” hires in his administration didn’t come from disadvantaged backgrounds, a loudly proclaimed justification for racial preferences. The plain language of 1960s-era executive orders directing the government to seek out qualified minorities but not to discriminate against others is echoed in ballot initiatives that seek to eradicate from government the practice of preferring on race over the other.

Irony, where is thy sting?

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Roger Clegg on Disparate Impact in SOTU

by lbarber on 02/04/2010

in Barack Obama,Judiciary,Roger Clegg

Thomas PerezLast month, the Department of Justice sued New Jersey and its Civil Service Commission for using an exam that “discriminates” against blacks and Hispanics, because these groups scored “statistically significantly lower” than whites.

Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez (pictured) said, “This complaint should send a clear message to all public employers that employment practices with unlawful discriminatory impact on account of race or national origin will not be tolerated. The Justice Department will take all necessary action to ensure that such discriminatory practices are eliminated and that the victims of such practices are made whole.”

Speaking at the left-leaning American Constitution Society, Perez said his department has “dusted off the disparate impact theory. If the fact support the use of disparate impact theory, whether it’s in the housing context, the voting context, the employment context, we will use the disparate impact theory because every court that has ruled on this has said that it is permissible to do so.”

The Center for Equal Opportunity‘s Roger Clegg writing at NRO’s The Corner points out that during Obama’s recent State of the Union speech, he said his administration “will once again” file suits against civil rights violation and workplace discrimination, implying that the Bush administration didn’t file such suits. If that’s the case, Obama missed a big one. In 2007, Bush’s DOJ sued the New York City Fire Department for discrimination.

Furthermore, “‘the employment discrimination’ that the Obama administration is challenging is not really discrimination at all,” Clegg writes, “it’s the use of written and physical tests that are nondiscriminatory by their terms, in their design, and in their application, but which have a politically incorrect ‘disparate impact’ on this or that racial, ethnic, or gender group.”

Disparate impact creates are a no-win situation, figuratively speaking. Racial disparities in employment tests typically result in discrimination charges, and the employer ends up watering down the test. But the disparity remains. Just short of eliminating tests altogether, which fire and police departments seem reluctant to do, the employer will face discrimination complaints. If the employer tosses test results or adjusts them based on race, he’s in violation of the law.

The solution carries such a high and convoluted burden of proof. The employer must make sure the test is job related, a business necessity, and there are no less discriminatory alternatives for selecting employers.

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Civil Rights-Era VRA Section 5

by lbarber on 09/30/2009

in Barack Obama,General

One problem with legislation created during the civil rights era to protect blacks from discrimination is that its present-day application typically is condescending.

For example, Georgia tried to protect the integrity of the voting process by requiring voters to present state-issued identification. I was under the impression that this was standard practice, but groups cried discrimination and compared this requirement to poll taxes and literacy tests, which whites used against poor and illiterate blacks to keep them from voting. Detractors claimed the ID requirement was discriminatory to old, low-income, and black people. Black legislators in Georgia even walked out of the state capital building in protest after the law passed.

I can’t help but think of the Stepin Fetchit character, and how little regard these black politicians had for their own people—too ignorant and/or too lazy to go down to the DMV and get a state-issued ID card, which was free if they couldn’t afford it.

I’m probably in the minority of blacks who sees the stark patronizing and condescending attitude people have toward black Americans, or at least one of a few to publicly talk about it.

DOJ sealWriting in National Review Online, Hans A. von Spakovsky, a former counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Justice Department, writes about an example of the Voting Rights Act’s Section 5 application. This law is a holdover from the civil rights era that requires certain states to seek federal approval to make changes in voting procedures. Regarding the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division:

“These highly partisan bureaucrats…typically exhibit a disturbingly patronizing attitude towards [black Americans]…The latest example of this transparent political mischief has, unfortunately, gone largely unreported by the media. It’s an outrageous objection by the Civil Rights Division to a voting change in the small town of Kinston, N.C. The case involved a referendum by the residents of Kinston to change the elections for city council from partisan to nonpartisan. The referendum passed overwhelmingly in November 2008. But the Justice Department recently refused to pre-clear it, claiming that it discriminates against minorities.

“The department’s decision is as offensive as it is inexplicable. Consider that, at the time of the November 2008 election, Kinston had about 15,000 registered voters, of whom 65 percent were black. This is actually a higher registration rate than one would expect, since the 2000 census showed that the black voting-age population is just 58.8 percent of the total population. Moreover, on the town’s five-member city council (elected at large), two of the councilmen are black and all five are Democrats. Although the current mayor is white, the longtime prior mayor was black.”

Von Spakovsky adds that DOJ lawyers use the Voting Rights Act to benefit Democrats. I certainly can believe that, as 90 percent of black Americans vote for Democrats. But partisanship aside, the government believes blacks need hand-holding and special treatment, cannot be expected to use discernment or be responsible for their choices, or deal with the consequences of those choices.

Hence, the existence of such policies as racial preferences, which hold blacks to a lesser standard.

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Washington Times on Thomas Perez

by lbarber on 09/29/2009

in Barack Obama,UC

Thomas PerezThe 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)

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Ward Connerly Says…

by lbarber on 08/03/2009

in Barack Obama,Ward Connerly

beer summitThe American Civil Rights Institute‘s Ward Connerly was recently quoted in several news stories. Examples below.

Commenting on the Henry Louis Gates story, Connerly said, “We’ve reached a point where white males are saying, ‘We’ve done all that we need to do in terms of treating black people with kid gloves and giving them deference. Now let’s do what’s right regardless of race.’” (Source)

In the Seattle Times, Connerly said this about the Ricci v. DeStefano case: “What has changed, and it’s been growing, is frustration on the part of whites, especially white males, about remaining silent on what they regard as very unfair.”

(Photo source: Stephen Crowley/The New York Times)

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‘Wise Latina’ Sotomayor Plugs Her Impartiality

July 14, 2009

Sonia Sotomayor faces a second day of questions posed by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for confirmation to the Supreme Court. The “wise Latina” said she’d be an impartial judge, despite previous statements that indicate the contrary. “Many Senators have asked me about my judicial philosophy. It is simple: fidelity to the law. The [...]

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Obama’s Response to Ricci

July 9, 2009

Like most liberal politicians, President Barack Obama supports race-based preferential treatment, although he calls it affirmative action, which it is not. We’ve explained on the blog several times what affirmative action is: widening the recruitment net to include qualified minorities historically left out of the process for whatever reason. Racial preferences are not affirmative action. [...]

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Shelby Steele on Post-Racialism

June 10, 2009

The indispensable Shelby Steele calls Barack Obama on his contradictory “post-racial” rhetoric and his penchant to play identity politics. He once called Obama’s post-racialism delusional. “Barack Obama seduced whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation,” Steele wrote. Chilling, but true. In his latest [...]

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Sonia Sotomayor: Obama’s ‘Wise Latina Woman’

May 26, 2009

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life. So says Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court. She said that a woman like herself would make better decisions [...]

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Ward Connerly, Waiting in the Wings

February 11, 2009

Victor Merina, a senior fellow at the USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism, has penned an article about the American Civil Rights Institute‘s Ward Connerly, “who can match his multiracial background with the biracial Obama.” (Source) Merina, like so many others, uses the terms affirmative action and race preferences interchangeably, when they are not [...]

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