General

This CNN story reveals some of the complications that crop up when the government asks people to state their race on government forms. According to a new government report, some Census workers “incorrectly communicated” questions about race during face-to-face interviews, and others made assumptions about the race of interviewees based on appearance. The story frames [...]

Admitting individuals to college based only on factors like grades, scores, and extracurricular activities seems a naïve notion, I admit. We must “remedy” past discrimination, they say. But when our government makes assumptions about individuals, and we authorize the government to make judgments based on those assumptions, we’re in dangerous territory. At Minding the Campus, [...]

Last week I blogged about the Phoenix city council’s intent to change its 17-year-old Minority, Women, and Small Business Enterprise Program, to remove race and sex from the city contract equation. The city will set aside up to 10 percent of government contracts for small businesses, regardless of owners’ race or sex. Officials said the [...]

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 [...]