Last June the mighty Robed Ones decided that the University of Michigan law school’s skin color preferences policy was permissible because it furthered “a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body.”
With the use of vague language and amorphous concepts, the Court begrudgingly confessed that admitting a “critical mass” of black students “merely because of its race or ethnic origin would be patently unconstitutional.”
But (isn’t there always?) since the school defines critical mass “by reference to the substantial, important, and laudable educational benefits that diversity is designed to produce, including cross-racial understanding and the breaking down of racial stereotypes”, it’s OK. Did you catch all that?
What number constitutes a critical mass, you ask? The school says it’s a number “that encourages underrepresented minority students to participate in the classroom and not feel isolated.”
How kind of liberals to care about us black folks so much! We just can’t succeed or excel or achieve or do anything without the intervention of well-meaning whites, including that nice Miss Sandra Day O’Connor!
Anyway, here’s a bit of “old” news (June) that I consider good, but my detractor out in Michigan may deem it “bad.” In spite of the Court’s pronouncement, the people of Michigan will get a chance to decide what’s best for their state. A federal court of appeals just cleared the way for organizers of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) to begin collecting signatures for its petition to end state-sponsored race preferences. Ward Connerly deserves the credit for his hard work.
Connerly is a true civil rights crusader who’s committed to organizing similar campaigns in all 50 states. His mission began in Democratic-leaning California, where the people said NO to skin color preferences in state hiring and admissions. His next stop was Democratic-leaning Washington State, where the people said NO to skin color preferences in state hiring and admissions. Connerly is now the engine behind MCRI.
In March, a Michigan circuit court had ruled that the language on the petition to put the MCRI on the ballot was misleading and should not have been approved. The Court of Appeals said otherwise. (MCRI’s) web site announced:
On Friday, a Court of Appeals panel unanimously affirmed in a 3-0 decision the legality of the petition language for the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative. The decision followed a ruling by an activist Circuit Court judge in March that defied common-sense and seemed geared only to delay the petition drive. The Court recognized that the MCRI petition works hand-in-hand with pre-existing civil rights and complies with all technical form requirements.
The court ruled that the proposed amendment can be read consistently with Michigan’s current anti-discrimination clause and that it didn’t “alter or abrogate” the pre-existing language of the Constitution. The Court ruled that “the fact that the proposed amendment uses some of the same terms found in Article 1, Section 2, does not compel the conclusion that the proposal alters, amends, or abrogates the existing wording of that provision.” The Court concludes that MCRI’s petition is legal.
I blogged about the MCRI back in June, but I’m doing so again because I want people to know about these court victories.
I was indignant about a certain so-called minority rights group calling itself the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) and their rabid opposition to the MCRI. I ranted:
This is typical of so-called minority rights groups. This sort of socialist thinking is so outdated. “All men are created equal” does not mean that “All men are entitled to equal stuff.” It refers to the American system of justice, that all men are equal before the law, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain rights, including the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It’s up to individuals, not groups, to engage in the pursuit. Each person alive has his/her own unique talents, drive, motivation, etc. There’s no guarantee that an individual will be successful or acquire the same material goods or accomplishments as any other individual. We are free moral agents and citizens with the legally-protected right to make our mark on the world.
Groups like BAMN believe that a scheme of collective ownership — socialism — is the way to go, even though socialism is a worldwide failure. Socialists, particularly American socialists, believe that the “underprivileged” should take from and government should penalize those whose labor produces goods and services. They hate capitalism, “racist” corporations (producers of jobs and wealth), competition and individual merit.
This is why BAMN and other groups masquerading as civil rights organizations fight for “affirmative action”: to steal from those who have to give to those who have not.
Connerly must get all sorts of hate mail and death threats. The man is an inspiration to me. Two years ago I wrote a review (gushing?) of his book, Creating Equal, and he e-mailed me, thanking me for it.
I guess he didn’t realize that it was I who should’ve been thanking him.
{ 17 comments }
Sweet!!
I read his book and found it very honest and compelling. Mr. Connerly seems like a very down to earth, intelligent man. I truly appreciate such individuals.
More power to him!
Aw Lashawn,
Why you wanna kick ‘im when he’s down?? Poor ole James David Dickson……..what is he, an actor? Sara Michelle GELLAR? Michael Clarke DUNCAN?? (A’ight bro, don’t whup me…you’s a big brotha) John Dork KERRY? (Clearly, Bloggies – King of the Dorks.)
Anyway, Mr. Dickson is simply expressing his infantile frustration & desperation as he KNOWS his days are numbered.
Likewise for middle class black kids that are not quite as smart as trailer park inhabitants. (Yes, test scores prove it, James David. Might you be one of those non-deserving uppity black boys? Still begging for that crutch to lean on? Waaah!!)
You see, if it wuddn for that one boneheaded Supreme Court Justice that cast the deciding vote in the Law School case, naively opining something like….it’ll be okay in another 25 years of racist application of race in admissions (Huh?) – well, let’s just say that Aff. Action would be obsolete.
I say Government-sanctioned racism and/or quotas-preferences disguised as fair & equitable treatment of all – the ORIGINAL Affirmative Action – will be essentially outlawed in 3-5 years, at best no longer practiced for fear of lawsuits.
Sowwy bout dat J.D.D….you need to go hit the books, son. Your black brain works just fine; please do apply it one day. It’s a terrible thing to waste.
And if the people of Michigan should decide that race-based admissions are unfair, the proponents will be screaming ‘organized racism’. And three guesses to whom they’ll assign blame….
My Three Guesses”
1. George Bush
2. George Bush
3. George Bush
SELLOUT! SELLOUT!
Back in the Fifties in the Old South part of Texas, my folks were “liberals” — scare quotes because that was true only in context; in any objective analysis they were just one wing of the standard group.
My grandmother once told me, “You have to be nice to the Negroes. They can’t do for themselves like white people can.”
I’m sure she would have been gratified to discover that her statement was the official policy of the Democratic Party. She would no more have voted for a Republican than she would have let the word “n*r” pass her lips.
Regards,
Ric Locke
That is such a poor strawman argument the assumption that efforts towards social equality equal an inability is poorly thought out.
Did you make the same argument when you read through history and learned about the homestead acts as well as past and current cases of white priviledge?
I will tell you what, when you can statistically prove that affirmative action or any other attempt and correcting the historical problem of white racism in America has truly had a negative effect on the white population as a whole, I will give you $20
I have a friend that applied to the University of Virginia (UVA.) She had a 1340 SAT score and a 3.8 GPA. She didn’t get in.
I had another friend that got into UVA with a 1050 SAT and a 2.5 GPA.
Both were privileged. One the daughter of a lawyer, the other the son of an engineer and a judge.
Now you guess which one is black and which is white.
The irony is, the black guy failed out miserably because he couldn’t compete, and of course the girl was denied her first choice and a better school because of her skin color.
Now pay me $20.
That is not proof guy, go back and re-read the question.
” will tell you what, when you can statistically prove that affirmative action or any other attempt and correcting the historical problem of white racism in America has truly had a negative effect on the white population as a whole, I will give you $20 ”
I will wait…
Define the “white population as a whole”, and how it is I’m supposed to measure a “negative” or “positive” effect with respect to this population. I don’t buy the underlying assumption of your rationale, namely, that we should all be lumped into and judged as separate groups or classes. I could care less if 99.99999999% of white people aren’t harmed by affirmative action (although I’d conjecture that’s a bit lower.) The point is, I care if an INDIVIDUAL (who may happen to be white, or asian, or whatever classification your collectivist mind deems adequate) is not given what they deserve based off of their time, effort, and ability.
My previous analysis still stands. Pay me $20.
And here’s some food for thought: what positive effect does affirmative action have for anyone (that is, here and now, not 40 years ago)? It’s now becoming obvious that affirmative action does effect the admittance of blacks to selective schools, but for all schools, without affirmative action or not, the number of blacks enrolled would be the same. Under the affirmative action regime, a black candidate that would do well at say, Penn State University, is instead accepted to say, the University of Pennsylvania, and is placed in an atmosphere that makes it hard to compete. I would conjecture that this explains why the college drop-out rate for blacks is so high. Of course, no need to conjecture; according to Larry Elder:
Now if you can show positively that killing affirmative action would revert the country to segregation and Jim Crow, I’ll pay you $20.
I have a friend that applied to the University of Virginia (UVA.) She had a 1340 SAT score and a 3.8 GPA. She didn’t get in.
I had another friend that got into UVA with a 1050 SAT and a 2.5 GPA.
That’s very interesting.
The graduation rates of Blacks and whites at UVa are about the same. In fact, the graduation rates of both are about 85%.
Furthermore, unless one was from Northern Virginia while the other was from the other part of the state, such a difference in SAT scores seems a bit much.
Actually, one was from Northern Virginia (the girl), the other from Philadelphia, PA.
Also, that stat you put up is a little misleading. UVa won’t report it, but the truth of the matter is that blacks tend to take significantly longer to graduate (up to 6 years, vs. the traditional 4.)
See http://www.discriminations.us/storage/001913.html for more on this.
“Define the “white population as a whole”
Easy…go to http://www.census.gov and see the boxes and stats marked caucasion.
“And how it is I’m supposed to measure a “negative” or “positive” effect with respect to this population.”
My point exactly.
“I don’t buy the underlying assumption of your rationale, namely, that we should all be lumped into and judged as separate groups or classes.”
The very nature of your argument demonstrates that you don’t believe this is to be true. To truly hold to this assumption the utilization of race and any form or fashion could not be applied. Furthermore the use of generalizations to track change is standard not only in demographic studies but scientific studies. The point being, if you disagree with being “lumped” then you disagree with 99% of anyone who studies science or trends. But that is your priviledge.
[quote]I could care less if 99.99999999% of white people aren’t harmed by affirmative action (although I’d conjecture that’s a bit lower.) The point is, I care if an INDIVIDUAL (who may happen to be white, or asian, or whatever classification your collectivist mind deems adequate) is not given what they deserve based off of their time, effort, and ability.[/quote]
Who deserves what, when and where, and whom makes that decision? We know 50% of all hiring decisions are subjectively based and that the majority of jobs are unquantifiable in terms of being “measure” what a successful candidate on the front end of an interview would be. So who deserves what, when and where?
Secondly, the assumption that test scores correlate to success, may be reasonable aligned (I am not sure though), but you are assuming that the primary premise of college is to have people get the highest grades. It has been statistically evidence that people who have a high “emotional IQ” perform better in society, and perform better on the job that those who have a standard “High IQ”. So is measuring someone purely based upon SAT and GPA the best ultimate indicator of success, real success anyway?
Finally, I think it convenient that the conservative typically flip flops from a social perspective to an individual perspective when it fits what he or she wants to “get out” of the argument.
For example, the argument for the war on Iraq (as WWII) is one of the preservation of the social good, with the good of the individual (solider) potentially sacrficed for the social good. Very utilitarian, like Spock said in ST II the good of the many out weigh the good of the few. There are more examples, but blah.
Yet, when this same “social” perspective is attempted to be applied to an issue such as affirmative action, the need of the INDIVIDUAL suddenly is much greater than the need of the many.
“My previous analysis still stands. Pay me $20.”
Just say that you can’t prove it. There is no need for ego’s here.
“And here’s some food for thought: what positive effect does affirmative action have for anyone (that is, here and now, not 40 years ago)?”
Ask Lawshawn Barber.
“Under the affirmative action regime, a black candidate that would do well at say, Penn State University, is instead accepted to say, the University of Pennsylvania, and is placed in an atmosphere that makes it hard to compete. I would conjecture that this explains why the college drop-out rate for blacks is so high.”
It actually doesn’t explain anything. You are attempting to correlate data that does not necessarily correlate. For example, for you to have a valid argument, all blacks with a 1000 SAT and all whites with a 1000 SAT would have to analyzed over a period of a couple of years. IF the rates of drop out based upon SAT score were the same, you argument would be true. IF the rates of drop out were higher for blacks, you would have to assigned the higher rate to an alternative variable.
That is why Larry Elder’s argument may or may not be true, but until proven with a control group, it is like you said…….Conjecture.
“Now if you can show positively that killing affirmative action would revert the country to segregation and Jim Crow, I’ll pay you $20. ”
Didn’t say it would…don’t think it would…
I grant that there are some legitimate aspects to categorization. For example, it might be prudent for a scientific study on heart disease to take into account the race of the test subject.
However, I still reject your assumption of categorization with respect to college admissions, hiring, and other typical realms where affirmative action is used.
When I said I emphasize the individual vs. the collective, this is because in things which ought to be dictated by merit, the individual is paramount.
Furthermore, the reason why such grouping is used is to say that “everyone in this group is underprivileged and lacking in opportunity.” I reject the notion of categorization because there are many individuals lacking in privilege and opportunity that are not in the group you administer to (blacks), and furthermore, that there are plenty of individuals in the group of focus which are of privilege.
To claim that affirmative action exists to remedy white racism is to claim that blacks have failed or would fail absent affirmative action (because, presumably, white racists would hold them back.) I find it silly to make such a claim when racism in society is overwhelmingly receding into oblivion (note: I define racism traditionally, and not under the “results” rationale.)
At least with our previous focus of discussion, affirmative action in academia, we could eliminate ALL SUBJECTIVITY by using completely objective measures like SAT, GPA, difficulty of coursework, school, etc.
It is reasonably held and widely supported that SAT scores are correlated to the ability to do well in college. Furthermore, the test itself accurately measures the skills necessary to be successful in college. It is not the end all indicator, but it ought to be a very large indicator.
I can’t appropriately answer your arguments on “emotional IQ”, because I don’t know what we’re measuring when you say that those with such an IQ “perform better on the job.” Sticking to academia, there is a traditional and generally understood skill set required for college coursework. The SAT accurately measures it.
I stand by my demand. You made the bold offer. I make the bold reply.
First, I said show me why affirmative action is needed now, not why it was needed in the past. You don’t attempt to answer my position. The past is not an area of dispute.
Second, this is a short sighted proposition. Simply because La Shawn was admitted under affirmative action, is not to say that she would not have been admitted to a lesser school (or the same school), and is certainly not to say that she wouldn’t have become a successsful writer (a career that, noticeably, doesn’t necessarily require a college degree to be successful in.) You’ll have to excuse me on my analysis, because I don’t know the details of La Shawn’s life.
Third, this is the same kind of proposition that Al Sharpton made when he claimed that Clarence Thomas wouldn’t be where he is now without Affirmative Action – as if all his brilliance stemmed from some white liberal helping him along. This is the same kind of proposition that Atlanta Mayor Bill Cambell made in 1996 when he said, “Everybody who is a person of color in this country has benefited from affirmative action. There has not been anybody who has gotten into college on their own, nobody who’s gotten a job on their own, no one who’s prospered as a businessman or a businesswoman on their own without affirmative action.” This screams out to the black community that you cannot survive without government handouts.
Here’s a question that’s untested and unanswerable: would these people have been admitted without Affirmative Action? We can’t say, because history never allowed us to see that path.
Absent any data, this conjecture is the best I can do.
First, as far as I know, no such study exists. It probably wouldn’t be very good either, because students go through different programs, different schools, and have different lifestyles. Such a study you propose simply has too many variables.
Second, if you have an alternate explanation to that posed by Larry Elder, I’m all ears. I would suggest that as a defender of affirmative action, something which is most certainly contrary to american principles in favor of a “greater good”, I would suggest that you have a burden to show why affirmative action does not do what I claim it does. Further, I would ask for proof as to the conclusive benefits for blacks, as a whole, as you have so demanded of proof of harm against whites.
Lastly, if elimination of Affirmative Action would not revert us to pre-Civil Rights Act, then why would it be bad to eliminate Affirmative Action?
From where I stand, the underlying premise of the argument which broke out here is inherently flawed. The matter cannot be resolved as long as you think in terms of populations and not individuals.
My father’s family came from mountains to the south of eastern Europe, which makes me, in fact, Caucasian. When I think about my identity, I do not start by thinking of myself as a member of the White Race, even tho living in a largely black neighborhood makes the contrast evident.
Affirmative Action has no effect on us. My field of work, cellular geekery, is not one blacks tend to enter (altho I have a neighbor whose son will be getting out of the Army this fall with skills I can place) and my wife’s field of work is such that most nights she is the only white on the shift. It is simply that, having been involved in some small way since childhood in the struggle to achieve a nation in which people are judged by the content of their character, it troubles me to see that goal abandoned.
La Shawn;
Thanks for continuing to raise attention to this issue. As director of media relations at MCRI, I will say that we will continue to “create equal” here in Michigan. We’re closing in on our goal, and would like to finish this fall season strong. Anyone in Michigan who’d like to volunteer would be appreciated, and any US citizen is welcome to contribute at our website or by mail.
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