Affirmative ActionAffirmative Action
Racial Preferences before the Supreme Court
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- Written by Roger Clegg
Most of my work last week was related to Fisher v. University of Texas, the challenge to racial preferences in university admissions in which the Center for Equal Opportunity has played such a key role, and which was argued last Wednesday before the Supreme Court.
I did an analysis of the oral argument for ScotusBlog – you can read the whole thing here, but here’s an excerpt:
Bean Counting in the Big Apple (and Elsewhere)
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- Written by Roger Clegg
The City University of New York has decided to add a “White/Jewish” classification to its list of “minority” faculty categories. The full list: “African-American/black, Asian, White/Jewish,Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender, Hispanic/Latino, Individuals withdisabilities, and Italian-American.” The move does not seem to bewell-received, according to the New York Post: “Jewish professors told The Post that marking them as Jews won’t make them the chosen people on campus — and may even shrink their ranks if Jews are found to be ‘overrepresented.’”Read all about it here.
Affirmative Action Questions for the Candidates
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- Written by Roger Clegg
With the Supreme Court set now—in an election year— to revisit the issue of racial preferences in university admissions, the various political candidates need to be ready for questions regarding their stance on affirmative action. Here are my suggested Q’s and A’s (originally posted on National Review Online here):
Bad Guidance on Racial Preferences
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- Written by Roger Clegg
As the K–12 school year draws to a close, school boards and superintendents will have to decide about tweaking student assignments for the fall. As they do so, they will also have to decide how much weight to give to the Obama administration’s “Guidance on the Voluntary Use of Race to Achieve Diversity and Avoid Racial Isolation in Elementary and Secondary Schools,” which was released jointly late last year by the Education and Justice Departments. The guidance encourages schools to consider students’ race and ethnicity in deciding who goes to which school.
Back to Madison!
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- Written by Roger Clegg
The Center for Equal Opportunity went back to Madison, Wisconsin, this week! Our studies revealing the heavy weight given to race and ethnicity in undergrad and law school admissions at the University of Wisconsin prompted a hearing at the state legislature. The chairman of the relevant committee is no friend of this kind of discrimination, and we were asked to testify. The hearings went very well, and you can read my testimony on ceo’s website at www.ceousa.org .
As you know, our earlier visit to Wisconsin last month was a great success. With the protestors, politically correct university officials, and all the media excitement, CEO’s studies got lots of publicity, and the issue of racial and ethnic admissions preferences is now clearly on the front burner in the Badger State.
For once, the New York Times is right!
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- Written by Roger Clegg
Earlier this year, the New York Times ran an editorial titled, “The Affirmative Action War Goes On.” Well, for once it’s right: That war does continue.
A Colorblind America
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- Written by Linda Chavez
Could anyone have imagined even a few years ago that the 2012 U.S. presidential race might end up as a contest between two black candidates? I certainly couldn't have. Yet, with Republican candidate Herman Cain's recent surge in popularity, the possibility is there. This says a great deal about race in America -- all of it good.
Discriminating Eye
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- Written by Roger Clegg
There was a dubious Associated Press story over the weekend about how California public universities are having to struggle to achieve “diversity”—defined as a student body that reflects the general population of the state—since Proposition 209 banned racial preferences in admissions there in 1996. (Center for Equal Opportunity studies documenting discrimination there helped pass that initiative, btw.)
Affirmative action and football
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- Written by Roger Clegg
When I’m debating the issue—as I frequently do—I often hear the following analogy used as a justification for affirmative action: Suppose that there were a game between two football teams, and during the first half one of the teams enjoyed all kinds of unfair advantages—its players were allowed to cheat in various ways, the referees made all kinds of unfair calls, and so forth. As a result, that team ran up a big lead. Then, after halftime, it was announced that from now on there would be no more cheating and bias—but the score was left unchanged and the opposing team was given no offsetting advantages.
