Dying gasps of racial preference industry
When equality is unconstitutional, the ideology behind racial preferences has failed
Race-based discrimination is wrong, yet it is the foundation of the Affirmative Action industry, which has survived judicial scrutiny based on historical wrongs which have very little bearing on college students today.
Yet any attempt to tinker with racial preferences meets with a faily hysterical response, as reflected in a recent statement issued by the Harvard Black Students Association in response to calls for economic-based affirmative action to replace race-based affirmative action (via College Insurrection):
We, the Black Community Leaders, must express how thoroughly disappointed many members of our community are at recent, public misrepresentations of affirmative action. As leaders and members of various cultural and ethnic groups on campus, it is our responsibility to respond to such blatant inaccuracies.
We were deeply disheartened by the assertion that students who benefit from affirmative action are less qualified than their peers. Aside from the fact that Harvard’s community of color is rich with exemplary students, the recent piece, “Affirmative Dissatisfaction,” also fails to recognize the importance of diversity, including the diversity of race. Furthermore, moving toward an exclusively class-based affirmative action policy, as alternatively suggested, ignores the continued importance of race in decision-making at all levels of American civil society. Unlike many in the majority race, minorities can expect to experience racially prejudiced interactions in almost every part of their daily lives, regardless of their elevated socio-economic or educational statuses.
In Michigan, voters took matters into their own hands, and ended racial preferences at state universities after a U.S. Supreme Court decision upheld such preferences as not violating the rights of non-minorities if done on very narrow grounds but not a point system. That gave administrators some perceived wiggle room to continue racial preferences.
Now a sharply divided Court of Appeals has stricken the Michigan law, as detailed by Hans Bader (an occasional contributer at College Insurrection) at the OpenMarket.org blog, Liberal Judges: Equality Is Unconstitutional:
On Thursday, a federal appeals court, dividing along ideological lines in an 8-to-7 ruling, struck down a provision of the Michigan state constitution prohibiting racial preferences in state college admissions, in Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action v. Regents of the University of Michigan.
Voters added Article 1, Section 26 to the Michigan State Constitution in 2006, to ban racial discrimination and preferences in government contracts, employment, and education. The appeals court declared that it violated the federal Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause for a state to require its state universities to treat students equally regardless of race, and to drop racial preferences in college admissions. (The University of Michigan has a history of discriminating against whites and Asians in admissions; in 2003, the Supreme Court struck down its undergraduate admissions policy, while upholding its law school admissions policy.) ….
The appeals court’s ruling contradicts multiple prior court rulings over the years. A virtually identical state constitutional amendment in California, known as Prop. 209 or the California Civil Rights Initiative, was upheld in 1997 by another federal appeals court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Coalition for Economic Equity v. Wilson, a ruling that the Supreme Court declined to overturn. It was also upheld by the California Supreme Court in a 6-to-1 vote in Coral Construction, Inc. v. San Francisco (2010). As law professor Eugene Volokh notes, it is likely “that the U.S. Supreme Court will agree to hear the case,” since “there’s a circuit split” (disagreement between different federal appeals courts), since “the Sixth Circuit disagrees with the Ninth Circuit,” and “the issue is one of significant national importance, and the 8-to-7 disagreement among the en banc court judges helps, too.” Like Professor Benjamin, he also predicts that “it’s very likely that the Court will reverse the Sixth Circuit.”
Affirmative action, as it currently is practiced, is coming to an end because the rationale no longer applies.
Student groups with vested interests, frightened administrators, and misguided judges can delay the inevitable, but they cannot hold back the march towards true equal protection under the law.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
“We were deeply disheartened by the assertion that students who benefit from affirmative action are less qualified than their peers.”
WELL DUH??? Of course that is true! Students with a “diverse background” and LOWER SCORES who are admitted because of their “diverse background” are less qualified as evidenced by their LOWER SCORES.
Who would you want operating on your child or spouse? The surgeon who aced his MCAT’s, or the one admitted to Medical School with LOWER SCORES but a “diverse background”. To me, this is a no-brainer.
Sadly, the problem goes far beyond MCATs. Once these students are admitted to Med School, they cannot handle the work load, consequently some sort of accommodation has to be made. You absolutely do not want one of these “Doctors” treating you in any way, shape or form.
The downside to affirmative action is that when you see a black doctor or other professional, you automatically assume that he or she was judged to a lesser standard in school.
I know this *must* apply to Presidents too, huh?
“… in response to calls for economic-based affirmative action to replace race-based affirmative action.”
Of course, this should be the case. And, if 99% of that economic-based affirmative action ended up legitimately going to blacks, that would be absolutely fine … at least it wouldn’t be going to upper-middle class blacks.
And if there is one subgroup I may suggest who should come first before all others, and I mean this only half-jokingly, it should be the very shy.
If you are outgoing and have ambition, the world is yours.
If you agonize over the smallest, most inconsequential things all day lone, every day, day after day, life is a bitch to get through.
Social phobics are disproportionately unemployed and underemployed. They are much more likely to drop out of school and to abuse alcohol and drugs.
LukeHandCool (who was once told by a professor at UCLA that he wrote the best papers the professor had ever received from any of his students … but who was also told he would fail the class unless he started joining in class discussions … the professor finally called on Luke, the first time anyone had ever been called upon in class … and when Luke stammered, turned red, and immediately started sweating bullets, the prof. looked horrified. Luke never spoke in class again, and, even though the prof. threatened Luke with a fail, Luke ended up with an A due to his papers. Social phobia ruins lives)
So. Other than that, how’s life been treatin’ ya?
🙂
(Sorry, as a social outcast, I can relate. However, humor does help. If not, I apologize.)
I’m alive, physically healthy (knock on wood) with a wife and children who occasionally show me a tiny bit of affection … so I can’t complain!
Underemployed, but then such is my lot in life.
I just worry about the young and shy falling through the cracks … nobody’s looking out for them! And they’d rather die than call attention to themselves and engage in any kind of self-advocacy.
Thanks for asking, jakee!
“… the recent piece, “Affirmative Dissatisfaction,” also fails to recognize the importance of diversity, including the diversity of race.”
—Ummmm, you look at a Japanese classroom where everyone is Japanese.
Or a South Korean classroom where everyone is Korean.
How is a lack of racial diversity negatively affecting their educations?
Think about that and you’ll soon get over your diversity worship.
“Diversity” was always nothing but the shiny object used to divert attention from the racial spoils system.
While there may be something of an advantage of a culturally diverse student population, it would only be so given that all else is equal – that the diverse and homogenous populations were equally qualified. But that is NEVER the case, and any benefits of “diversity” in education are most certainly more than balanced by lowering the net average qualification of the population.
Diversity originally was supposed to be evidence of non-discrimination. It was not itself the superficial goal. On its own, it has absolutely no value. Two generations after numerous ostensibly anti-discrimination laws were put into place, “diversity” has substituted for equal opportunity.
“You can rationalize anything”.
This is one of the great lessons I learned in law school.
Your load your lil’ computer with crap premises, and you will get crap conclusions.
High up on my list of those would be, “You counter racial discrimination by discrimination by race”. See? It even sounds stupid.
And, yet, certified smart people have told us that in most solemn tones for decades. And they have hurt countless people of all races with that perfidy.
“The appeals court declared that it violated the federal Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause for a state to require its state universities to treat students equally regardless of race, and to drop racial preferences in college admissions.”
Priceless (in the sense that it has no value) liberal nonsense. The Equal Protection Clause is violated by treating everyone equally?!?!
Hello liberal Bizarro world!
I think we now know why the affirmative action president won’t release his transcripts.
Of course, to the liberal “mind”, the phrase “people of color” is somehow different from “colored people”.
Read “Marching Morons” by C.M. Kornbluth. Free on Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/23657356/The-Marching-Morons)
The opinion is not only troubling for its looney result (the 6th Circuit is not supposed to be like the 9th Circuit!).
The opinion is troubling for its vote. This was an issue considered by the entire court — 15 judges. The majority 8 were all nominated by a DEM. The 7 in dissent were all nominated by a REPUBLICAN. An issue of pure ideology.
So, as we live through the next 4 BO years, we will see the DEM/REP ratio changing in the DEMs favor in all Federal Appeals Courts.
Who says the law is about legal principles? Law on the U.S. Appellate level is about politics — the politics of the identity of who appointed you, your political party. The supposed legal reasoning courts offer in written form is a joke — it is nothing more than a fig leaf covering the ideology.
Finally, the TRUTH of how the lunatic-left’s favorite form of discrimination, AFFIRAMTIVE ACTION SPECIAL TREATMENT / RACIST RACIAL QUOTAS, have hurst the lives of those given this privilege, as well and the schools and society that must cope with its harmful results…
“Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It,” October 2012, by Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor Jr.
The authors cut through the lies and BS that the lunatic-left has been saying for decades and use documented facts and case studies to show the horrific consequences of this ill-conceived, immoral form of discrimination. The common result of affirmative action discrimination is a “mismatch” between the privileged situation that it grants to certain minorities and their ability to fulfill the normal expectations of that situation. Although the authors do not use him as an example, OBOZO is certainly the poster-boy for the ill effects and bad consequences that affirmative action special treatment can have (“mismatch” = “in over his head”). Had OBOZO not had the privileges afforded by this discrimination against other, more academically qualified people, he might well had gone into a career that was a better match to his actual skills and abilities (like golf caddy, another race hustler on msnbc, a Planned Parenthood abortion assistant, an “eye candy” model for Ebony magazine, etc.) and would have been successful, instead of being a compete and total failure as THE WORST PRESIDENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY, which has resulted in economic and financial hardship, pain and suffering to millions of Americans and even the deaths of at least five Americans due to his failed policies.
Diversity of skin color seems so shallow. The Tea Party deserve some scholarships. Obama openly declares them to be uneducated ignorant hillbillies that cling to their religion and their guns. Only subsidized schoolin’ can save them from ending up like Sarah Palin.
Of course they tend to be conservative, so they’d have to have separate drinking fountains, and be kept in the back of the bus. Fordham set the standard on that, where Coulter was so rabid she was a threat to the whole campus. Poor conservatives would need a semester of
sensitivity trainingenlightenment before being allowed to mingle with others.But diversity of political thought is never advised, since the Marxists plot on how to use teaching to subvert young pliable minds.
Their selective recall of history is disingenuous at best. Their selective recognition of reality is morally depraved.
The only legitimate conception of diversity pertains to the uniqueness of individuals. Any other definition is prejudiced and serves to denigrate individual dignity.
By the way, the lead editorial in today’s NYT (MY OPPOSITION RESEARCH) was on this very issue, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/opinion/class-based-vs-race-based-admissions.html
So now that the Czar of Progressives has spoken on this issue, consider this to be talking points for MSM and DEMS going foward.
Admissions policies that take class into account, rather than race, are getting a renewed push as a win-win solution. The contention is that they more fully serve the goal of diversity in higher education and provide a progressive way to resolve an enduring conflict that has now returned to the Supreme Court in a case about race-conscious admissions at the University of Texas at Austin.
But a crucial premise of the class-over-race argument is wrong. It is not possible to maintain the same level of racial diversity in higher education while applying a race-blind admissions policy. Class-based admissions generally reduce the number of black and Hispanic students. To maintain or build the levels of racial diversity on selective campuses, it is necessary to maintain race-conscious admissions. . . . .
Maintaining race-conscious admissions contributes significantly to campus diversity, while serving racial and social justice. Expanding class-conscious admissions significantly expands diversity while serving social and economic justice
NOTHING has contributed MORE to the Dumbing Down of America than Affirmative Action. It’s just that simple…
Right you are. Hellfire, 20 years ago I had an African-American student failing the Algebra II class I was teaching. She assured me that she would had been promised tutoring to get her through whatever math classes she might have at that particular state university. Since she wanted to teach early elementary, it wouldn’t make a difference.
Deep sigh. I always hated it when students who did horribly in math planned on teaching elementary school.
“. . it violated the federal Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause for a state to require its state universities to treat students equally regardless of race.”
This is why the legal profession (in particular those who wear robes) is held in such disrepute.
How can a Equal Protection clause be violated by treating people equally?
How does one manage to THINK in that manner? How does one think like that and manage to cross the f’n road without being run over like a confused opossum?
How can a legally trained human being parse that statement to be true?
The judges are out of control when they can make a ruling like that that flies in the face of logic and simple common sense. If they can legally justify that ruling then the law IS a ass.
Imagine how complicated affirmative admissions will be when Aliens land.
Admission Officers will be terrified that they will be kidnapped & anally probed for inside information.
Panels of class /race/etnicity experts will be sitting with extra tight sphincter muscles.
They will have only their youthful LSD experiences to base a whole new classification system on.
The Rust Belt universities will definitely be the first choice of Aliens because that is where they always land.
So the 6th circuit judges are just protecting themselves.
Race and class and ethnicity are being made a primary focus of K-12 under the misleadingly named Positive School climate mandate. That was a July Executive Order for those states who did not already agree in their unconstitutional NCLB waivers.http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/making-race-and-class-oppression-the-locomotives-driving-the-positive-school-climate-mandate/
Then you have the AACU, the Justice Department, the federal Dept of Ed, and the Lumina Foundation all arguing that there cannot be any disproportionality. Even course to course in higher ed.
The term commonly used now is Credential Attainment for a reason. Making coursework accessible to all fulfills the long-standing dream to make education about values and attitudes and social engagement and interaction.
Whatever happens in the Fisher case, education as the transmission of cultural knowledge is finished until enough people begin to recognize it has been gutted intentionally in the name of seeking equality.
This is a winning issue. I know this because, when the Federal government required the local schools to designate the race of the kids, the parents in deep-blue Columbia Maryland rebelled. That area attracted people based on its notions of, among many other things, racial and religious acceptance and co-operation.
The basic response was, “If you don’t want racial discrimination, don’t discriminate based on race. We don’t want the Federal government classifying our children this way.”
The beginning of the END to this abused ‘system’. I look forward to the complete END of this obnoxious ‘social justice’.
There’s lots of “diversity” engineers who speak no English, are functionally semi-literate, and have no clue how Western Civilization works.
But they’re all absolutely BRILLIANT. How else to explain that their pass rates for engineering licensing exams are soooo much better than for whites. (And the raw scores and breakdowns of passing grades are never released. The Dark Side of the Force is strong in the Civil Engineering Guild.) Oh, and they hire only each other in a way that would get a white guy destroyed for “discrimination.”
And they’re currently taking over construction of the country’s infrastructure.
Just think, those two little ones who shall not be named here, they will qualify for preferential treatment based on their racial identity. Spending 8 years of your childhood living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has hardships we can’t imagine.