The Walter Williams Hour

That should have been the title and theme of the discussion panel at the Cato Institute last night because what I sat through was boring and uninspiring. The highlight of the evening was when Walter Williams, who was the moderator (he’s the tall one), interjected a comment or two.

The panel included Douglas Besharov, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, Marie Gryphon of the Cato Institute, Tonya Clay, People for the American Way and Harry Holzer, Georgetown University.

As far as I could tell, Gryphon, a former education policy analyst at Cato, was the only anti-affirmative action panelist, but in a libertarian way. I’ll elaborate later. Tonya Clay is a black lawyer who is pro-race preferences, and believes, as do most liberals, that “affirmative action” is a fair policy that “levels the playing field.”

I squirmed in my seat as she rattled off the usual excuses for lowering standards for blacks: diversity and fairness (shameful!).

She kept emphasizing the word qualified whenever she referred to blacks and minorities (she used the term African-American), although black college admittees are usually less qualified than their white counterparts.

I’m still trying to figure out why Besharov was there. I think he was anti-race preferences, but I’m still not sure. He appears to be a child welfare expert, and he talked about the need to discuss financial aid for college as much as we talk about race preferences. OK. Besharov seems like a nice man, though.

Holzer, a professor at Georgetown, is a pro-race preferences liberal who tried mightily to defend the foul doctrine.

Gryphon is an anti-race preferences libertarian. She elaborated on her recent essay, The Affirmative Action Myth, published last month and wrote frequently on the need for school choice while covering education policy.

Except for Walter Williams, the whole thing was uneventful. After the speeches, I was itching to ask the panel (3 pro and 1 anti) about the morality of skin color preferences, but someone got to it first. The man, clearly against preferences, asked no one in particular whether a government categorizing its citizens by race is immoral. This is it! I thought. Wrong.

I wanted Clay (I couldn’t find info about her), a supporter of race discrimination, to address the issue. But she didn’t. At least I don’t recall. Gryphon the libertarian said that Jim Crow and race preferences aren’t morally equivalent at all; race segregation was clearly worse. OK. I’ll go with that. And what else?

Nothing else. No panelist answered in detail, at least to my satisfaction. Gryphon tried her best, I suppose. I don’t mean to malign libertarians, but their idealogy seems to be missing a moral dimension. Last month I flirted with the idea that I held a few libertarian principles, but as a Christian, I could never embrace their ideology.

Someone asked about school vouchers and why liberals were opposed. Clay took that one. Vouchers take money away from government schools, she claimed. Not true in D.C. She added that since black children were stuck in government schools and may not be able to gain admission to private schools, we should not encourage the use of vouchers.

My mouth dropped open, and before I could fully react, Williams interjected. He asked: (paraphrase) “So if there is a way to help some black children, we shouldn’t do so because all black children won’t be helped?”

Audience applauds.

Clay tried to recover and said that yes, we should help some if we can but all need to be helped, or something like that.

Anyway, to get to the real reason for my being there, I got to say a few words to Williams, who is very popular. I didn’t want to be rude and monopolize his time, so I told him who I was (conservative, writer, blogger) and that I admired his work. I gave him my card, and he posed for a couple of photos with me.

He said he check out my site, so if he’s here this morning: “Hi, Mr. Williams!”