Woody Allen and Affirmative Action | Center for Equal Opportunity

In his recently published memoir, Woody Allen writes:

I’ve taken some criticism over the years that I didn’t use African-Americans in my movies. And while affirmative action can be a fine solution in many instances, it does not work when it comes to casting. I always cast the person who fits the part most believably in my mind’s eye.

He’s strictly meritocratic, in other words. As he has said elsewhere: “I cast only what’s right for the part. Race, friendship means nothing to me except who is right for the part.”

In light of Mr. Allen’s insistence that, nonetheless, “affirmative action can be a fine solution in many instances,” here is today’s multiple-choice question:

For which of the following positions is it least important to select the person who will do the best job?
(a) Medical personnel during a coronavirus pandemic;
(b) Policemen, firefighters, schoolteachers, and other public employment in which a lack of “diversity” is a frequent complaint;
(c) A position in your company that will affect its success and your paycheck;
(d) A job for which you are the most qualified and for which you have applied; or
(e) A minor role in a pretentious art-house movie that no one will see.

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But of course the Center for Equal Opportunity does not limit its insistence on colorblind equal opportunity to Woody Allen.

Below is a published response by me last week to a recent editorial that ran in a couple of Virginia newspapers. The editorial was about giving preferences on the basis of race, ethnicity, and sex in government contracting — and the Center for Equal Opportunity opposes that.

Re your editorial “Take aim at state contract inequality” (March 16):

While you are correct as a political matter that the “knotty question” in how to ensure that women and minorities have an “equal chance” in state contracting will likely hinge on whether to grant them “set-asides” and the like, your editorial fails to state the fundamental legal and policy problem with such measures: It is unfair to give people preferential treatment on the basis of race, ethnicity or sex — and it is generally unconstitutional to do so.

Any such preferential treatment would be constitutional only if it were essential to remedy discrimination, which is highly unlikely today since, as Chief Justice John Roberts wrote years ago, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Conversely, it would clearly not be lawful for the aim to be simply helping a preferred group “gain a larger share of the commonwealth’s business,” to quote your editorial.

That may be politically correct, but it is still discrimination.

It’s good to make sure that contracting programs are transparent and accessible, that bidding opportunities are widely publicized beforehand, and that care is taken to ensure no one gets discriminated against because of skin color, national origin or sex.

But that means no preferences either. Such discrimination is unfair and divisive; it breeds corruption and otherwise costs the taxpayers and businesses money to award a contract to someone other than the lowest bidder; and it’s almost always unconstitutional to boot.

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By the way, we’re averaging a letter a month sent to various local jurisdictions all over the country, warning them about the legal and policy problems with this nonsense. To refresh your memory, you can read what a typical warning from us looks like here.

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