Activist: Michigan Affirmative Action decision was “racist”
“This is a racist decision that takes us back to an era of states’ rights”
Yesterday, Chris Wallace featured two panelists to debate the outcome of a recent United States Supreme Court ruling on Affirmative Action and the use of race in the admissions process. The case upheld a Michigan voter referendum banning the use of race or gender based Affirmative Action programs in the public university admissions process, among other things.
One panelist was a successful litigant from a prior Affirmative Action Supreme Court case, Jennifer Gratz. Gratz is also the CEO of XIV Foundation, an organization “dedicated to the principle that equal treatment is the essence of civil rights and that all people are entitled to civil rights.” The other panelist was civil rights attorney, Shanta Driver.
As I watched the debate unfold, one thing I could not help but notice was the use of the word “equality,” in each opposing side’s rationale for their position.
Gratz, who advocated for upholding the Michigan referendum to end race preferences cited “equal treatment under law,” regardless of race. Likewise Driver, advocated for the continuation of federally protected race preferences in the admissions, also citing the need for equality. In fact, Driver went so far as to compare this decision by the Supreme Court as a revival of Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 Supreme Court case that brought about the concept of “separate but equal” segregation.
Even allowing for hyperbole, the rhetoric employed by Driver in voicing her dissatisfaction with the Supreme Court decision is wildly irresponsible. Moreover, her logic was far from sound, and Gratz continually proved to be the more knowledgable advocate at this debate.
At one point, Driver completely went of the rails of reason. In doing so, she declared,
This decision not only allows for the segregation of schools in Michigan, California and other places, but it restructured the political process. Now, any other group in the state of Michigan — alumni, donors — anyone wants a change in the admission system to favor the chances of their sons and daughters getting in, can go to the Michigan regents and lobby them. Black, latino and Native American, if we want a change, we have to get a state constitutional amendment passed.
Gratz countered,
That’s not true. No one based on their race or their gender can now lobby the regents to give preferential treatment to anyone based on their race or gender. The people of Michigan, and the people in seven other states have said “take race and gender off the table.”
Put another way, blacks, latinos and Native Americans have every right to lobby the Michigan regents just as anyone else in the state of Michigan does. A black alumni can lobby for his/her son or daughter based on their alumni status. A latino or Native American donor can lobby for his/her son or daughter based on their status as a high powered and influential donor.
What a black, latino, or Native American cannot do is lobby based on their race. Just as whites cannot lobby based on their race. Just as Asians cannot lobby based on their race. By the very definition of the word, this Supreme Court decision was a dramatic step toward equality, not away from it.
And therein lies the fatal flaw in a program like race-based Affirmative Action. At its very core, it is not a program designed to treat every individual equally. It is a program designed to give special treatment.
Ultimately, that’s what Driver wants. Not equality, but preferential treatment on the basis of race.
The full video of the debate is posted below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxkBX-KCZk0
(Featured Image Source: YouTube)
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Comments
In the recent past I feel like progressive have become more successful at flipping everything 180 degrees. They have also been able to redefine the meaning of words and projected all their bad thoughts onto “the other.”
A decision to allow states to determine how equal and fair their school admittance for any given race – meaning to allow the CONDISERATION of race – is now racist simply because it doesn’t codify the ability to isolate, segregate, and treat a group in a special way.
Wow.
I believe this is what you meant:
A decision to allow states to determine how equal and fair their school admittance
for any given raceprocess is, regardless of race – meaning toalloweliminate the CONDISERATION of race – is now racist simply because it doesn’t codify the ability to isolate, segregate, and treat a group in a special way. (NOTE: changed/added text in bold italics)Is that correct? Otherwise, I am not sure I “like” your post after all………
Don’t you both mean CONSIDERATION ?
It’s so simple. Race should never be a factor in any hiring, college admissions, housing, benefit allocations, etc. situations. Merit and achievement alone should determine who will reap the rewards of acceptance of their work through the institution or agency making the decisions. This is the only way to ensure that America advances in all areas of technology, from farming to space exploration. Those who can’t or won’t do the hard work needed for the sciences can still function productively in other areas as long as they strive to do their best and take pride to what they sign their names.
Black Americans have been given every advantage possible for fifty years. Where are they? We all know. Most have failed. Most have failed because their culture refuses and, in fact, teaches then to reject opportunity and education. Quite frankly, those raised in mid to lower circumstances refuse to take advantage of all that has been offered to them. So ;et them wallow in it and fail. The best thing we can do is stop feeding their needs and let evolution take its course. Let evolution take its course.
JRT and JohnC have both stated the problem with people like Driver. The thing is that they throw their energy at established citizens because it is more effective than anything else they’re willing to try. They get money thrown at the school systems and yet their interest group doesn’t get better. Lowering the acceptable standard of achievement just hides the problem. Forcing acceptance helps and hurts because kids that don’t meet the standard fail soon enough anyways.
The culture around these kids is what needs to change. That’s why some charter chola have worked. You would think, seeing those successes, that Driver and her ilk would spend their energy working on cultural changes. But no, they’d rather attack the few blacks like Cosby and West that actually address the problems in black urban society. Somehow this makes more sense to them.
“The best thing we can do is stop feeding their needs and let evolution take its course. Let evolution take its course.”
The Margaret Sanger Award Winner for 2014.
All the animals are equal, but some are more equal than others….
Ms. Driver was your typical Collectivist race-obsessed “group-thinker”, by which I mean she does not see people as individuals but only as “groups”.
One of her arguments was that a minority child would need a boost because they would…as an assumption…come from an inferior school experience. Another assumption seemed to be they would come from poverty. In Michigan.
I remember wondering when I first heard her “reasoning” if there were no black and/or Hispanic engineers and executives employed by the various auto-makers.
I KNOW damn good and well that there have been decades of black workers earning VERY good incomes in the industries of Michigan.
So Driver’s ASSSumptions are a form of racism themselves. She projects the “racism of low expectations” on Michigan minority applicants.
What a black, latino, or Native American cannot do is lobby based on their race.
Is this correct?
As I thought I understood it, such persons can lobby in any old racist way they please. But the school can’t base admission decisions on it.
Affirmative Action which denies individual dignity and institutionalizes discrimination by incidental features or attributes is a violation of equal protection and is wholly prejudiced. They should avoid the Marxist social model, and rather than redistributing “fish”, teach people how to “fish”.
The civil “rights” advocates lost credibility decades ago when they did not adapt their methods to defend individual rights. Their reactive methods were only ever justified during the initial confrontation and perhaps shortly (e.g. one or two generations) thereafter. Since that time, the perpetuation of their original methods have cast them as bigots (i.e. sanctimonious hypocrites).
its racist to not act racist.
these people are so f*ing stoooopid.
When Gratz says ‘equality’ she means equality of opportunity.
Her measure of equality is that all students be measured by the same standard. It doesn’t matter how many minorities are successful – only that they got the same fair chance to succeed as everyone else.
When Driver says ‘equality’ she means equality of outcome.
Success is her only measure of equality. The only thing that matters is how many minorities make it across the finish line. If not enough minorities succeed then the system is racist. No other reason may be considered.
I wonder what Sen. Lieawatha (D-MA Cherokee) has to say ….
Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927–2003):
“The time may have come when the issue of race could benefit from a period of “benign neglect.” The subject has been too much talked about. The forum has been too much taken over to hysterics, paranoids, and boodlers on all sides. We may need a period in which Negro progress continues and racial rhetoric fades. The administration can help bring this about by paying close attention to such progress—as we are doing—while seeking to avoid situations in which extremists of either race are given opportunities for martyrdom, heroics, histrionics or whatever.”
-memorandum to President Nixon on the status of Negroes, as reported in The Evening Star, Washington, D.C., March 2, 1970, p. A–5.
Driver’s reasoning: blacks deserve “race sensitive” college admissions advantage because their lower test scores and grades result from inner city low-quality schooling. Her solution? Fast track them to college via affirmative action.
A more constructive fix for these students could be remedial reading-math and then subject repeat. Community college style. The successful could reapply race-blind. Along with other students of whatever race who want to keep trying.
Why instead pass unqualified students up to fail again? A damaging and expensive policy.
They’ve never seen some of the schools in Africa which manage to graduate excellent students.
The lesson: the cost of the school is irrelevant; the student’s hunger to achieve trumps everything, including parental involvement.
The real problem is the ghetto gangster culture that so many blacks have adopted . The live a life of welfare and crime without the ability to improve themselves. Read http://beforeitsnews.com/astrology/2013/07/before-its-deleted-of-the-dayby-black-right-via-brent-romero-2434132.html
“PC” language/concepts/assumptions is gaslighting.
States’ rights are now racist? Does this person even know that without the consent of the states, there IS NO Federal governmental authority whatsoever?
That picture at the top of the post, I could not help but notice hate in her eyes.
I think these people got it backwards, or they are trying to fool the rest of the world into getting it backwards. All those claims of white privilege are just the surface a very dark feelings.
That kind of hate makes you ugly in the inside, so ugly that it shows outside.
I like Justice Roberts’ comment: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
Why does it have to be any harder than that?
Oh yes and let’s not forget the progressive policies that have destroyed black America. Like affirmative action and welfare. Black ppl will tell you their problems are rooted from slavery and Jim Crow. but this is the conservative blogosphere slavery never happened. if a black person feels any sort of discrimination it has to be a race card. Racism does not exist. according to this website blacks know nothing about race and race relations or what’s right or wrong with race only small town conservative pundits do.
Obama was elected because of affirmative action twice right? Not because he kicked the shit out of the republicans right? Oh and Ted Cruz is Hispanic and won the government shutdown.
“Oh and Ted Cruz is Hispanic and won the government shutdown.”
Huh? How do you get that?
Yes, Cruz is in the Senate, and the Senate bore partial responsibility for the shutdown… but you can blame that on Harry Reid and Barack Obama.
Question is there one living African American leader that the tea party and Black America respects together? Short of mlk Tim Scott and a few other square dancers I don’t think you all like too many American Black leaders.
“I don’t think you all like too many American Black leaders.”
Why bring race into it? Why can’t they just be American leaders, who might happen to be black?
I also have to wonder if you’re asking this question to “Black America” about people like Allen West.
Most black Americans do not like Allen West because they don’t believe that he takes policy positions because of his beliefs only to please conservative leaders so that they have a black conservative. Tim Scott Ben Carson have never acknowledged the disadvantage of life as a black Americans.
Blacks are stuck on the democratic plantation were the government takes care of them. I guess they like masters to take care of them. They don’t seem to mind being lied to and manipulated by our Dear Leader either.
The main disadvantage that blacks face is self inflicted. They chose to belong the ghetto gangster culture an live a life of dependency, crime and failure. Instead of blaming others for their situation they should do what others do in order to be successful in the USA.
It’s not that complex. First don’t have children before your ready and out of marriage. Take responsibility for your children and raise them to be good citizens. Value education and take advantage of every opportunity to learn. Value honesty, integrity and esscue crime and drugs. Value work and work hard to take care of yourself and your family. This is how most people succeed in our country and it is what black have to do in order to become successful.
You my friend I think you harbor some ill feelings to others based on color. IFC your statements lead me to believe that.
So slavery has no negative impact on black America and Jim Crow also. If Your grandparents never experienced these abominations I’m sure there were prominent members of society. Mine were not. You will never understand. You will always talk down to people because you believe that you are better. That’s is why we have a black president because America doesn’t think like you think. Very one sided and caught in your conservative bubble.
Oh no we as conservative will never acknowledge that it’s rap music and welfare. It’s all their fault
When cold hard fact face you directly you have nothing to soy my friend…