The Center for Equal Opportunity’s Linda Chavez talks about the “controversial” report that revealed the extent of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s racial preferences.
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Center for Equal Opportunity
Last week I blogged about how Roger Clegg was mobbed at a hotel in Madison, Wisconsin, while answering questions about the Center for Equal Opportunity’s “controversial” studies that showed the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the law school lower admissions standards for certain racial minorities. In his own words:
“Since I was there, I thought I would also add a few observations. The mob’s protest took place in stages: The protestors began by chanting outside the hotel; then they broke into the lobby, where they chanted some more; then they insisted on opening the door to the room where the press conference was being held, which of course made their chanting more audible; and finally they physically broke into the room.
“Happily and ironically, by that time, the press conference was essentially over. The only people still asking questions, which I was happy to answer, were other disgruntled students. So the protestors succeeded only in shouting down other students.
“Once the press conference was over, the mob then followed me and Professor Lee Hansen, a persistent and valuable critic of preferences, as I tried to go back to my hotel room. They even tried to jam into the elevator with us. Obviously, at that point, whatever they were attempting, it had nothing to do with the press conference, which was over. I should add that throughout the day the staff of the DoubleTree acted impeccably—indeed, with great physical bravery—as did Professor Hansen. The staff and the professor always kept between me and the protestors. I would urge all Americans to patronize DoubleTree hotels, and to thank God for brave men like Lee Hansen.
“I agree with KC’s condemnation of the diversicrats at the university and their behavior. But I want to praise the university in one significant respect. Later on the day of the press conference, I was scheduled to debate the issue of ‘Affirmative Action in Higher Education’ under the auspices of the law school’s student chapter of the Federalist Society. Given the events that morning, and given the fact that students had announced plans to protest the debate, I was afraid that the debate would be canceled by the school on some pretext or other, giving the protesters a victory of sorts. To the university’s credit, it not only did not do that, but moved the event to a larger facility (which was fine with me), and sent plenty of campus police to ensure that the debate took place. The police did a great job. A huge number of students indeed attended the debate, and while they were occasionally unruly, I was able to have my say.”
(UPI Photo/Roger L. Wollenberg)
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Liberals love demonstrating their perverse idea of tolerance by shouting down or attacking conservatives on campuses and in the public square.
Yesterday, a “diverse” group of protestors at the DoubleTree Hotel in Madison, Wisconsin, shut down a press conference about a study exposing the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s (UW-Madison) race-based admissions scheme.
Roger Clegg, president and general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO), was answering questions about “Racial and Ethnic Preferences in Undergraduate Admissions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (PDF),” when opponents of racial neutrality in government rushed into the conference room, surrounded Clegg, and shouted “Power to the people!” and “More than our scores!” until he left the room. (See this AP story for more information)
Funny thing about facts: no matter how sad or infuriating they are, they’re still facts. Unrighteous indignation doesn’t alter them. For example, it is a fact that schools lower admissions standards for certain minorities (East Asians not included) to increase “diversity.” According to a CEO study released this week, the odds of admission (based on SAT score and class rank) in 2007 and 2008 for black and Hispanics over whites at UW-Madison were 576-to-1 and 504-to-1, respectively.
The median SAT score for blacks was 150 points lower than for whites and Asians, and 100 points lower for Hispanics. Based on ACT scores, the odds were 1330-to-1 for blacks and 1494-to-1 for Hispanics. CEO also found “severe” discrimination in law school admissions. In fact, the color of the student’s skin was given much greater weight than Wisconsin residency.
“[A]n out-of-state black applicant with grades and LSAT scores at the median for that group would have had a 7 out 10 chance of admission and an out-of-state Hispanic a 1 out of 3 chance—but an in-state Asian with those grades and scores had a 1 out of 6 chance and an in-state white only a 1 out of 10 chance.”
How did such an obviously unfair and patently demeaning practice get started? In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued an executive order that directed federal contractors to take “affirmative action” to ensure that applicants were treated equally “without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” They were encouraged to cast a wider recruitment net to include in the hiring pool qualified minorities who’d been historically excluded. In 1971, President Richard M. Nixon authorized the Department of Labor to set specific goals and timetables to correct the “underutilization” of blacks by federal contractors.
The same year, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Griggs v. Duke Power Co. that an employer’s use of a high school diploma requirement and aptitude tests violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Black applicants disproportionately lacked diplomas and/or scored low on the tests, and the requirements had a disparate impact on this group. The court held that even if an employment practice is “facially neutral,” it’s suspect if it has an adverse impact on members of a protected class. To avoid liability, businesses would have to demonstrate that such tests are a business necessity or related to job performance.
Fast forward 40 years, and “affirmative action” has reached embarrassing proportions. Not only are prospective college students given points and other special considerations for the color of their skin, but blacks themselves publicly announce to the world that they can’t nor should be expected to compete with whites on pencil-and-paper civil service exams.
Even more bizarre, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit struck down a voter-approved law in Michigan that barred the government from considering race in employment, contracting, and education. In other words, the panel contended that outlawing racial discrimination discriminated against minorities. Fortunately, the full court has agreed to reconsider the case.
That blacks are adversely impacted by a grades-and-scores system doesn’t mean blacks are the targets of racial discrimination. It means as a group, they are adversely impacted by a grades-and-scores system. It does not follow that the government should add points to an individual’s application based on race and reject another applicant for having the “wrong” skin color.
It is illogical to demand equal treatment and special treatment at the same time. Equality before the law is supposed to protect the rights of individuals, regardless of skin color or grades or SAT scores. “Tolerant” liberals can shout down the messengers until their faces turn blue. Suppression is futile, and facts are relentless. Taxpayers have a right to know they’re supporting local, state, and federal governments that treat individuals differently based on the color of their skin.
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In the plainest terms, racial preferences supporters believe our government should continue its race-based practices, in favor of certain minorities this time, given America’s history of slavery and Jim Crow, and present-day racial disparities. You’ll read and hear the euphemism diversity quite frequently.
Dr. Andrew Grant-Thomas, preferences supporter, responded to the Center for Equal Opportunity’s (CEO) recent study that showed the University of Miami and Ohio State University admitted blacks and Hispanics (were their ancestors slaves, too?) with lower grades and scores than whites and Asians. In “Are Ohio’s Black and Latino students buoyed by a system of preferences? Not hardly,” he refers to “terrible inequities” in the educational system and the ensuing academic achievement gap between the races.
(As an aside, pairing the word not with hardly negates the meaning Grant-Thomas or the headline writer intended to convey, but we get it. Moving on…)
Grant-Thomas asks whether a hypothetical higher scoring student is more deserving of admission over a lower scoring student who can’t afford a prep course, has to work, and has to take care of younger siblings. Such hypotheticals are designed to obscure the issue and deter you from asking why the lower scorer, despite his burdens, deserves admission over the higher scorer. You’re not supposed to ask or even worry about the higher scorer, because he presumably has so many advantages over our “disadvantaged” student.
For the sake of argument, let’s agree that our working student with lower grades and scores does deserve placement over the other guy. Why factor in the disadvantaged student’s race? Won’t the socioeconomic factor or his personal essay about his struggles buoy his chance of admission in a school that takes these criteria into account?
Grant-Thomas next mentions Kelly Williams-Bolar, the black mother who sent her children to a better school outside her district and was sentenced to jail over it. Therefore, he implies, we should accept and support our government assigning and admitting individuals to schools based on race. Sound familiar?
There are myriad reasons why some government schools stink and why racial disparities exist, but the remedy isn’t to discriminate against others. Making assumptions about individuals based on the color of their skin was the cause of America’s ugly racial history, the history people can’t stop talking about. An impetus behind the civil rights movement was black Americans’ bone-deep desire to be seen and judged as individuals by their government after so many years of yielding to codified, race-based, second-class citizenship.
Our government’s history of that kind of racial animosity should rally people to bar lawmakers from ever doing anything remotely like it again.
Sadly, that’s not the case. Preferences proponents invoke this history and present-day racial disparities to demand that our government continue race-based practices, as long as certain minorities “benefit.” Double-edged sword.
Finally, Grant-Thomas uses the term “affirmative action” as a catchall for non-racial factors like economic and geographic. He seems to think the CEO calls for an end to assessing these factors as well. That’s not the case. Many racial preferences opponents have suggested schools consider these factors when making admissions decisions. The CEO, the American Civil Rights Institute, and others call for an end to any and all racial considerations by the government.
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“As new figures from the Census tell us, the United States is becoming an increasingly racially and ethnically diverse nation — with a population that doesn’t fit neatly into the racial boxes constructed for ‘diversity’ purposes. So why is it that some universities and other institutions continue to use the old paradigm of granting preferences to members of groups that are deemed ‘underrepresented’?”
The Center for Equal Opportunity’s (CEO) Linda Chavez wrote about her organization’s recent study that showed Ohio State University and the University of Miami admitted blacks and Hispanics with lower grades and scores than whites and Asians (the non-preferred minority). In defense of their preference practices, both schools claimed they looked at a variety of factors beyond race, such as essays and letters of recommendation.
The implication is these things are somehow equalizing factors. But are we to believe that despite a black applicant’s lower grades and scores, his essay and/letters of recommendation would be so outstanding as to overcome his deficits and grant him admission over candidates with higher grades and scores? In one case, perhaps, but in every case? Of course not. Everyone knows what’s going on, even if he/she doesn’t want to admit it. But I digress.
If, as a result of CEO’s study, the people of Ohio want to bar racial preferences in government (and lawmakers aren’t interested), they have the power. Ohio is a ballot initiative state:
“Ohio’s new governor, John Kasich, should consider following the example of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who outlawed racial preferences in that state’s schools in 1999…If Gov. Kasich and the state legislature are not willing to do so, the people of Ohio might follow the example of voters in California, Michigan, Washington, Arizona, and Nebraska by putting an initiative on the ballot and letting the people decide. Applying different standards to individuals based on color or ancestry is fundamentally wrong. The sooner we get rid of categorizing people by race, the closer we’ll be to ending discrimination once and for all.”
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