The Washington Post ran an article recently on Google and its demographics. Most of it is devoted to discussing the company’s “diversity” efforts and its painfully slow progress in achieving the politically correct racial, ethnic, and gender balance it wants. Too many white and Asian men, not enough of everyone else. But fear not: The suits — does Google have “suits”? — acknowledge “we need to do more to achieve our desired diversity and inclusion outcomes,” so department heads will be “tasked with meeting intermediate milestones,” and the company has set as one of its “major goals” to “reach or exceed the representation of available talent pools for black and Hispanic employees.” And “to achieve our desired outcomes, we need to do more” — oh, wait, the Post had quoted that already. No matter: Boxer promised more than once to work harder — his farm had its quotas too, no doubt — and so will Google.
Not a lot new here, really, but two points. First, it’s illegal to hire with an eye on race, ethnicity, and sex and toward achieving predetermined numerical outcomes — i.e., quotas. Where is the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission these days? Apparently it’s following Harvard’s example: Whites and Asian Americans are viewed as having fewer civil-rights protections than other groups. As for men — well, forget it.
Second, buried in the Post story is one piece of actual news, namely that “attrition rates were highest for black and Latino employees.” Now, the Left’s narrative will be that this is more proof of the toxic and racist environment throughout all America and especially at hellholes of reaction like Google. But might it just be possible that, instead, in its zeal to get its numbers right, Google has hired individuals who are not as well qualified as others at the company, and so those folks just haven’t worked out? This mismatch is omnipresent at our selective universities, of course, and it’s logical that for the same reasons it will happen in the workplace, too.
So the use of preferences hurts not only the white and Asian-American applicants who don’t get hired, but the Latino and African-American applicants who are, and who are being set up to fail. No matter: Google will work harder!
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Richard Sander’s Fight with the California Bar – Speaking of “mismatch”: George Leef has a fine essay here on Richard Sander’s fight with the California state bar. Professor Sander has done great work over the years documenting the “mismatch” effect of racial preferences — that is, how university admission of students with significantly lower qualifications than the rest of the student body results in those students struggling at the school. They are less likely to graduate, get lower grades, and are more likely to switch majors. In the case of law-school students, they are also less likely to pass the bar, so that we actually have fewer black lawyers now than had there been no affirmative action. Unintended consequences, indeed.
Professor Sander wants to continue his work in this area by looking at the bar passage rates in California, but the politically correct state bar there is having none of it. It has refused to share the relevant data, even though Sander has made clear that he’s happy to have all personal information redacted. Unsurprisingly — since all involved are lawyers or would-be lawyers — the matter is now in court. Mr. Leef’s essay relates the disturbing story.
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‘The Worst Thing to Be in Many Democratic Primaries? A White Male Candidate’ —
What first caught the eye of the Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky and me in this front-page story in the Washington Post, about the primary victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York, was not the headline or the report of her campaign slogan, “It’s time for one of us,” but the next sentence, which began: “That appeal to the tribal identities of class, age, gender and ethnicity turned out to be a good gamble . . .”
Wow. So for the MSM there’s nothing negative about saying that someone is appealing to “tribal identities,” since that is just one campaign tactic among many. Some candidates play the ideological card or the issue card. But far from being condemned, playing the tribal identity card is just matter-of-factly reported as if it is no big deal, and the only thing that matters is whether it works. While this was a news story, we have no doubt that if a conservative candidate used an appeal that the Washington Post thought was wrong, it would say so.
The rest of the article is in line with this callous point of view, reporting the Democratic party’s “growing dependence on female and minority voters,” picking candidates based on their membership in “underrepresented groups” (a PC term first limited to college admission offices), and how “voters want to support people like themselves,” who can represent them “in an authentic way,” and are “most representative of their communities.”
Apparently, “people like themselves” are not fellow Americans — whatever their race or gender — who may share similar opinions. No, only people who are members of the same “tribe” could possibly share their beliefs.
Now, the Left’s response to our objections will be, come on, this is nothing new, and this sort of tribal politics was used for years by white racists. And our reply is . . . exactly.
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Withdraw the Obama Administration’s ‘Dear Colleague’ Letter on School Discipline –
Here’s something else that Hans von Spakovsky and I noted together: The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), which does great work, has written U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, urging her to withdraw an Obama-era “Dear Colleague” letter giving school administrators “guidance” on how to comply with federal law when it comes to school discipline.
Threatening lawsuits if the administrators didn’t comply with the “guidance,” the 2014 letter coerced many school systems into adopting illegal racial quotas in their disciplinary decision-making.
The Obama letter utilized the “disparate impact” approach to civil-rights enforcement, whereby a policy that does not discriminate on its face, in its intent, or in its application is nonetheless deemed illegal if it has “disproportionate” statistical effects among different racial and ethnic groups.
A number of other organizations, including the Center for Equal Opportunity, joined in WILL’s letter to Secretary DeVos, which continues the steady drumbeat on this important issue from conservative groups. Here’s hoping that she withdraws the discipline letter soon, as she correctly did with similar letters by the Obama administration regarding sexual harassment on college campuses and transgender students in school bathrooms.
Certainly, there is no lack of reasons to withdraw the letter, which created both legal and policy problems. Procedurally, it violates both the Congressional Review Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. Substantively, as the WILL letter explains, the Education Department lacks authority to use the “disparate impact” standard in enforcing Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in programs or activities that receive federal funds. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled in Alexander v. Sandoval that Title VI bans only “disparate treatment.” In any event, the letter’s hyper-aggressive approach violates other Supreme Court and lower federal-court decisions, including a ban on racial quotas in school discipline.
As a policy matter, there is overwhelming evidence that Obama-era policies culminating in this “Dear Colleague” letter pushed schools to avoid disciplining students who needed to be disciplined. It made avoiding politically incorrect numbers more important than maintaining school safety.
The victims of this unfair and unlawful policy are most likely to be well-behaving, black and Latino students — and their teachers — whose classrooms become disrupted and dangerous. And it doesn’t do misbehaving students any favors either, since a lack of early corrective action may only encourage even more disruptive and potentially dangerous behavior. This is what some refer to as the school-to-prison pipeline.
So, kudos to WILL. And please, Secretary DeVos, withdraw that letter immediately and instead ensure that the Education Department follows good educational policy, Title VI, and the Constitution.
