Make the Game Open to All
Baseball is my sport, I once wrote in this space. So why must Major League Baseball continue to encourage discrimination on the basis of race and sex in its business operations? MLB does not see its Diversity Fellowship Program as discriminatory, but how can it not be?
The program is for recent college graduates aiming to have a business career in baseball. You need a grade point average of at least 3.0. Degrees in economics, analytics, computer science, applied mathematics, law and business are “strongly” encouraged, which is good. Disappointing to me is that “a passion for and knowledge of baseball is helpful but not required.” Not required? What kind of baseball people are we raising up? At least the actual players have baseball knowledge and passion.
But then there is this eligibility criterion: The program is “open to people of color and female candidates.” This can be read in only one way: White men need not apply.
Federal civil rights law prohibits private employment discrimination on account of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Per common practice, MLB’s various business components describe themselves as equal opportunity employers who do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, and sex. But MLB surely must know that its fellowship program risks a lawsuit. And why should it not do a little editing, so that “open to people of color and female candidates” becomes “open to people of all races and nationalities and both sexes.”
Or something to that effect.
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Against Preferential Treatment
The statewide referendum to make preferential treatment legal in the state of Washington has failed. Read John Rosenberg’s detailed coverage in Minding the Campus, and keep an eye on his treatment of preferential treatment in particular. (Had to say that.)
Consider this: Rosenberg says that a policy of preferential treatment where “race could never be the deciding factor has never existed.” How could it, he asks. “Considering race means that some individuals will be admitted to a university or hired for a job who would not have been but for their race.” If race were only “one factor” in the decision making process, “if as preferentialists claim it never is the deciding or determining factor, then nothing would be lost by eliminating consideration of it.”
That’s both clever and correct.
Related posts:
Does MLB’s New Diversity Fellowship Violate Civil Rights Law?
TESTIMONY OF ROGER CLEGG, PRESIDENT AND GENERAL COUNSEL, CENTER FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITY BEFORE THE U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS REGARDING THE PROPOSED EMPLOYMENT NON-DISCRIMINATION ACTDid Juan Williams libel LU’s Hans Bader?
We Need More Bills Like This