Once again during this Presidential season, we see the three main weapons of Progressivism on display: gender, class, and race. Take those three away, and they don’t have much, do they? Anyways, the last of those three is under attack in the Supreme Court as the University of Texas use of affirmative action in admissions and whether it still fulfills a “compelling” reason for the State to force “color-blindness” or continue skin color discrimination. That is the question – in the quest for a color-blind nation, at what time do we really start to do as we preach? In my lifetime (and the grey hairs are becoming more prevalent such that they are the majority color now), much wrong has been seen, many many of those wrongs have been righted, and attitudes have been changed for the better. Yes, there is still more to be done, but I ask, in a tangental fashion: other than the usual race baiting suspects (e.g., the Al Sharptons and David Dukes of the world), are we close to closing down affirmative action? Or are we doomed forever to have the spector of race overhang much of society (e.g., when does color-blindness actually disappear – when those that profit from race-baiting can no longer do so?)? When do we really go more than skin-deep?
Anyways, here are some thoughts from Roger Clegg at The Corner (reformated) listing why affirmative action (with around 60 years of having affirmative action):
How, then, can they possibly be “compelling” (which is what the law requires them to be), especially when they must be weighed against the many and undeniable costs of racial discrimination:
- It is personally unfair
- passes over better qualified students
- sets a disturbing legal, political, and moral precedent in allowing racial discrimination
- creates resentment
- stigmatizes the so-called beneficiaries in the eyes of their classmates, teachers, and themselves, as well as future employers, clients, and patients
- fosters a victim mindset
- removes the incentive for academic excellence
- encourages separatism
- it compromises the academic mission of the university and lowers the overall academic quality of the student body
- it creates pressure to discriminate in grading and graduation
- it breeds hypocrisy within the school
- it encourages a scofflaw attitude among college officials
- it mismatches students and institutions, guaranteeing failure for many of the former (see the Kirsanow-Mulder piece)
- it papers over the real social problem of why so many African Americans and Latinos are academically uncompetitive
- it gets states and schools involved in unsavory activities like deciding which racial and ethnic minorities will be favored and which ones not
- how much blood is needed to establish group membership.
Q.E.D.: Racial preferences ought not to be used.
So, what think you all?
