Archive for Quotas
This is one of the more bizarre “diversity” stories I’ve read.
To help ensure “minority representation,” Nettleton Middle School in Nettleton, Mississippi, designated which race could run for certain class officer positions. Only whites could run for class president in all three grades—sixth, seventh, and eighth. In sixth grade, blacks could run only for the reporter position. In seventh, they could run only for secretary-treasurer. In eighth, they could run only for vice president and reporter.
It’s important to note that some article commenters claim the middle school alternated the set up annually. For this school year, the above schedule applied. The year before, things were switched around. Only blacks could run for president of each class, for example. Now this, if true, is less bizarre, and it helps me understand why the black principal and vice-principal (and parents) allowed this 30-year-old practice to continue.
People are outraged, naturally, but this is a consequence of the diversity obsession. Rather than allowing students to choose all class officers from among the general student body, the school opted for set-asides. Apparently, the white-majority school feared black students wouldn’t win elections to any office, so it rigged the process to ensure blacks would hold at least one office per grade.
The jig is up. A mother of mixed-race children filed a complaint after her daughter was told she couldn’t run for sixth-grade class reporter because she was the wrong race. According to the article, the mother took issue with the black/white dichotomy, as Hispanics and other races attend the school. An excerpt of the article:
By Friday afternoon, Superintendent Russell Taylor posted a statement on the school’s website, saying the policy had been in place for 30 years, dating back to a time when school districts across Mississippi came under close scrutiny from the U.S. Justice Department over desegregation.
“It is the belief of the current administration that these procedures were implemented to help ensure minority representation and involvement in the student body,” the statement said. “It is our hope and desire that these practices and procedures are no longer needed.”
“‘Therefore, beginning immediately, student elections at Nettleton School District will no longer have a classification of ethnicity,” it added. “It is our intent that each student has equal opportunity to seek election for any student office.”
…
Springer’s plight demonstrates the complexities faced not only by interracial families, but by school officials trying to achieve racial equality in a state known for tensions between blacks and whites. The school district also manipulated prom and homecoming elections so that the outcome is an equal division of blacks and whites.
Racial preferences supporters in the audience, are you outraged over the school’s attempt to make sure black students had an opportunity to hold office?
(Photo credit: Randy Springer)
Filed under: Quotas | |1 Comment
The American Civil Rights Institute’s Jennifer Gratz is featured in a story on NPR about “affirmative action,” also known as racial preferences.
The plaintiff in Gratz. v. Bollinger, in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the University of Michigan’s use of a racial point system in admissions, told NPR that there “were rumors in high school that the University of Michigan used race in their admissions policy. I remember hearing that and thinking, ‘There’s no way — that can’t be true.’”
Sadly, it was true, and it’s true in colleges and universities across the country.
In Grutter .v Bollinger, the companion case to Gratz, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote that the court expected racial preferences would no longer be necessary 25 years from now. How she came up with that figure is anyone’s guess, but it was just filler. The court found that the government had a “compelling state interest” in racial diversity, and if lowering standards for black students was the way to achieve it, so be it.
The article quotes people on both sides of the so-called debate. John McWhorter says he has no problem with racial preferences, but doesn’t like the lowered expectations the policy fosters.
“What concerns me is that until you get rid of a system that says B-plus is about as well as you have to do, then that’s about as good as all but a few strange shooting stars are going to do…In general, people do as well as they have to. How can black parents know what it is to qualify your student for Yale and Princeton in the way that white and Asian kids can, if black students can get into those schools without their parents having had to learn those sorts of things?”
Preferences proponent Tim Wise gets the last word, calling out the “myth” of quotas.
“The idea that colleges have to have a certain number of black students and certain number of Latino students just isn’t true. But the overwhelming majority of white folks in all the research I’ve seen believe those lies — believe those myths.”
I don’t know what sort of preferences opponents Wise has talked to, but the ones I know don’t make distinctions between racial quotas and lowered standards for blacks. The point is not that schools set quotas; it’s that schools consider race an admissions qualification, quotas or no quotas.
As far as admissions committees are concerned, race serves as a signifier of certain attributes deemed beneficial in the name of skin deep-only diversity. Rather than moving beyond racial stereotypes and assessing the individual as an individual—not as a member of a preferred racial minority group—we allow our government to hold fast to those stereotypes. As long as they “benefit” blacks. That’s not progress. That’s shameful.
Filed under: Diversity, Judiciary, Quotas | |Comments off
Although California’s constitution bars the government from discriminating against or granting preferences to individuals or groups on the basis of race in government employment, education, or contracting, proponents of race-based policies still resist obeying the law.
Last October, 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.
The Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) filed suit against the state, alleging that the law violated Article I, Section 31. Ward Connerly, who led the Prop. 209 campaign, was named as a plaintiff. Good news from PLF:
“The tentative ruling (DOC) by the court agreed with all of PLF’s arguments. The Court said that the state could not survive by refusing to enforce statutes that were facially unconstitutional. Furthermore, the Court noted that several of the statutes that we were challenging were not covered by the Court of Appeal’s decision, so there was no possible way that the state could refuse to enforce them, and there was no possible way they could be read in a constitutional way. The Court also rejected the State’s argument that the uncodified section of the Bill indicated the State’s unwillingness to enforce the statutes. The Court noted that such language ‘cannot be used to create a meaning that cannot be found in the unambiguous statutory language itself.’”
Incredibly, the state agreed the quota bill was unconstitutional. The language in the state constitution is plain, but it seems preferences proponents are hoping California voters develop amnesia.
Filed under: Pacific Legal Foundation, Quotas, Ward Connerly | |Comments off
Contingent on city council approval, Phoenix will change its 17-year-old Minority, Women, and Small Business Enterprise Program, to remove race and sex from the city contract equation. Kudos to Phoenix.
Instead, the city will set aside up to 10 percent of government contracts for small businesses, regardless of owners’ race or sex. (Source)
What prompted the change? “City officials say the change is necessary because the program is no longer needed and it’s vulnerable to legal challenges.”
Ah, legal challenges are troublesome, aren’t they? Local and state governments are slowly seeing the light. Whatever the rationale for such programs decades ago, they were discriminatory then, and they are discriminatory now. I wonder if Ricci v. DeStefano had any influence over the council’s decision.
One can imagine that it’s tougher for any smaller business to compete for city contracts. The race- and sex-neutral standard will help all small businesses. The story cites the successes of minority- and female-owned businesses in Phoenix. If most of those competed with the larger pool, without preferential treatment, the successes are even better.
Filed under: Quotas | |Comments off
Finally, a racial preferences proponent admits, publicly, exactly what the policy is. James P. Sterba, author of Affirmative Action for the Future, says (emphasis added):
“Affirmative action is a policy of favoring qualified women, minority, or economically disadvantaged candidates over qualified men, nonminority or economically advantaged candidates respectively with the immediate goals of outreach, remedying discrimination, or achieving diversity, and the ultimate goals of attaining a colorblind (racially just), a gender-free (sexually just) and equal opportunity (economically just) society.”
Interviewed by InsideHigherEd.com, Sterba says, in so many words, that it’s okay to discriminate against white men doing well for themselves. This is called “good” discrimination. Any other kind is bad, bad, bad.
Regarding the “outreach” goal, affirmative action, as conceived, was about reaching out to people previously left out of the process intentionally (No blacks need apply) or unintentionally (those “We’re hiring” flyers weren’t widely distributed). The definition of this non-discriminatory practice expanded to the point of absurdity, until its new and proper name was applied: preferences, or lowering standards for certain racial minorities most of the time and for women some of the time.
The “remedying discrimination” goal is fuzzy and faces limitations. For instance, the Supreme Court contended in Ricci v. DeStefano that when actions intended to remedy past discrimination are based on discrimination, there must be a “strong basis in evidence” that the remedial actions are necessary.
The “attaining a colorblind” society justification for racial discrimination is plainly ludicrous. The argument is, we discriminated in the past, so if we discriminate in the present, we’ll end up with a colorblind society in the future. On what level does that make sense?
As I’ve said many times, colorblindness among individuals may be a worthy goal. Either way, it makes little difference to me. What matters is whether government policy is colorblind. Such a policy treats people as individuals without regard to race. Individual, private citizens may hold prejudices and biases for whatever reason, but those prejudices and biases are held in check by a government whose duty is to protect everyone’s rights.
An individual is free to think whatever he wishes about me because I’m black, for example, but neither he nor my government may interfere with me because I’m black.
It’s not rocket surgery.
Roger Clegg comments on Sterba’s interview. An excerpt:
“But even if you think there are some benefits to affirmative discrimination, one must weigh them against the undeniable costs of such discrimination, and of course there is no mention of them here: It is personally unfair, passes over better qualified students, and sets a disturbing legal, political, and moral precedent in allowing racial discrimination; it creates resentment; it stigmatizes the so-called beneficiaries in the eyes of their classmates, teachers, and themselves…it papers over the real social problem of why so many [blacks] and Latinos are academically uncompetitive; and it gets states and schools involved in unsavory activities like deciding which racial and ethnic minorities will be favored and which ones not, and how much blood is needed to establish group membership.”
Filed under: Diversity, Quotas | |Comments off
…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.
Filed under: Diversity, Quotas, Socioeconomic AA | |Comments off
California 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.
Filed under: Column, Judiciary, Quotas, Ward Connerly | |Comments off
Lani Guinier, who said African immigrants should not receive racial preferences because they are not descendants of black American slaves, co-wrote an article in the New York Times with Susan Sturm, a fellow liberal law professor. Guinier was Bill Clinton’s nominee for Assistant Attorney General until her pro-quota views became known.
I echo what the Center for Equal Opportunity’s Roger Clegg says about the op-ed (via National Review Online):
“In a New York Times op-ed today, Profs. Lani Guinier and Susan Sturm discuss why they dislike standardized tests. They have no empathy, as it were, for Frank Ricci in the New Haven firefighters case, who earned his promotion by doing well on one. But the issue in that case was not whether this or that test was perfect; the issue was whether, having administered a particular test, it was illegal racial discrimination for the city to throw out the results because it didn’t like the skin color of the people who did well in it. And it’s hard to imagine that Guinier and Sturm would have written this op-ed if Frank Ricci and the other successful firefighters had been the right color or, more broadly, that they would work so hard to find objections to standardized tests if such tests didn’t so often have a politically incorrect disparate impact. Myself, I’m perfectly happy for cities to adopt whatever selection device they think is best, so long as they ignore race in making that decision.”
I believe objective tests are an excellent way to avoid being the victim of racial discrimination, even if minorities perform relatively poorly on those tests. There is always room for improvement, and factoring in race, even when it benefits minorities, has unintended consequences.
Minorities would do well to remove the government’s hand from the deck and rely on a “standardized” shuffle of the cards.
Filed under: Quotas, Roger Clegg | |Comments off
The city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, will spend $350,000 figuring out how to award government contracts based on race and sex.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, there’s a disparity in government contract awards between minority-owned businesses and the rest. And as we’ve been told thousands of times, disparities equal racism.
The city had utilized racial-neutral contracting, but a 2007 study found that it “underuses” minority-owned businesses in government contracting. “The city-sponsored study could provide a legal basis to fend off challenges if it confirms disparities and the city returns to a race-conscious program.”
The city assumes black-owned businesses should represent a certain percentage of government contracts. Former mayor Marvin Pratt said, “Hopefully, we can show statistically that we can have a race-based ordinance.”
But Mr. Pratt, why must the city color-code contracts? Perhaps streamlining the process would benefit black-owned businesses and help them compete without resorting to race-based decisions.
Is there a race-neutral way to help black-owned businesses? Streamlining and simplifying the contracting process probably would help such businesses. But the changes also would benefit the other businesses…unless they’re limited only to so-called minority-owned businesses, and that’s discriminatory. Whether you’re for or against “affirmative action,” doesn’t this reek of unfairness?
Filed under: Quotas | |Comments off
Quota advocates are hoping the economic downturn stimulates more than just federal funding. They’re hoping to increase set-aside contracts.
The Federal Highway Administration recently approved the California Department of Transportation’s (Caltrans) racial quota plan. The reason? What else…money. The state’s so-called Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program saw a drop in minority business participation related to the economy. Caltrans convinced the feds it needed to set racial quotas to reverse the decline in light of new stimulus funding headed to the state.
Apparently the idea sounds good enough to Minneapolis. Set to receive about $4 million in federal stimulus money, Minneapolis is ready to divvy up the racial spoils. Director of economic policy and development Cathy Polasky said, “I think we always go above and beyond what the federal mandate is, so we will be looking to encourage both local hiring and using the workforce agreements we’ve used in the past to encourage hiring of women and minorities,” she said. (Source)
For the uninitiated, “workforce agreements” is a euphemism for racial quotas.
James Frisco, president of the National Association of Minority Contractors’ local chapter, hopes the government sets aside a quarter of the energy-related contracts for minority-owned businesses.
Awarding contracts to the lowest bidder would seem to eliminate the risk of racial or sex discrimination, but some minority contractors insist on blaming racism for losing out. Unfortunately, this way of thinking is generationally entrenched. With the federal government tacitly agreeing with such attitudes, it will continue for generations more.
Filed under: Quotas | |Comments off
« Previous Entries||
