CEO needs your help (2013) | Center for Equal Opportunity

Dear CEO supporter,

2013 has been a banner year for the Center for Equal Opportunity, as we have continued in our relentless opposition to race-based policies by the Obama administration and other politically correct institutions. That’s why we are asking for your help again–but first let me tell you about some of what we’ve been up to.

Take, for instance, the results of two huge court cases CEO has been involved in this year. The first was the Supreme Court’s decision in June in Fisher v. University of Texas, overturning the court appeals ruling that had upheld the University of Texas’s use of racial preferences in university admissions.

CEO had filed a series of amicus briefs in this litigation — first in the U.S. Court of Appeals, then urging the Supreme Court to take the case, and then urging the Court to end racial preferences. Before that, we also filed an administrative complaint against the University’s policy.

The Supreme Court was right to tell the lower court to take a harder look. In a country that is more and more multiracial and multiethnic, our laws and institutions simply cannot sort Americans by skin color and what country their ancestors came from.

The other landmark Supreme Court case we’ve been involved in was the challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Shelby County v. Holder. And we won! CEO is very excited the Court struck down as unconstitutional the coverage formula of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. CEO had filed amicus briefs at both the petition stage and on the merits, urging this result. In addition, CEO president and general counsel Roger Clegg and I had testified against re-enacting Section 5 when it was last before Congress.

None of this would have been possible without the help of loyal supporters like you. But to continue our efforts, we need your help now more than ever. Thanks to the sluggish Obama economy, CEO is facing a difficult budget crisis. Yet no one does the work CEO does on these critical issues.

Once again, the race baiters–including, amazingly, President Obama himself–were out in full force telling the public that the Voting Rights Act case ruling turned back the clock on civil rights. But CEO was also out there giving countless interviews in mainstream media outlets, educating the public that the Court ruling made one thing clear: that in 2013 there is no justification for treating some states unequally and subjecting only some to extraordinarily intrusive federal oversight, based on obsolete data. This does not turn the clock back; it simply recognizes that times have changed.

What’s more, the Court’s decision will put an end to much of the politically correct racial gerrymandering that was the main use–along with challenging antifraud voter ID laws–to which Section 5 was put. Although both Fisher and Shelby County were good decisions for us, there remains work to be done in both university admissions and voting rights. And CEO is already doing it.

As we predicted, liberals will try to undo the Shelby County voting rights decision by trying to pass new legislation that will, for example, seek to perpetuate politically correct racial gerrymandering. But CEO is working to blow the whistle and educate congressional staff on this issue: In fact, we started that process even before the decision came down.

As for racial preferences in university admissions, the Fisher case can be a useful tool–but only if the opponents of racial preferences use it. CEO will do just that, by systematically contacting schools all over the country and using freedom-of-information laws to make sure they are following the rules that the Court’s Fisher opinion has set out.

Again, we couldn’t get this message out there without your donations. And we need your support now more than ever. CEO is not resting on its laurels. We’ve already succeeded in helping persuade the Supreme Court to hear another important civil-rights case for next term!

That case is Schuette v. By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that Michigan’s Proposal 2 violates the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. Proposal 2 was a ballot initiative passed in large part to stop the University of Michigan’s affirmative action admissions. It amended the state constitution to provide that state and local government agencies (including public universities) in Michigan “shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.” The Equal Protection Clause provides that “No State shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

But Proposal 2 not only does not violate the Equal Protection Clause, and is not only quite consistent with it, but is indeed nothing more than an elaboration on it.

CEO has been involved in this case for a long time, first in the lower courts and now in the Supreme Court. In fact, we helped get Proposal 2 passed in the first place, by releasing studies that documented how heavily racial and ethnic preferences were being used at Michigan public universities. We joined and helped write a brief urging the Court to take the case, and have joined and help write another brief now that it is on the Court’s docket.

The other case in which CEO has been involved in this term is Township of Mt. Holly v. Mt. Holly Gardens Citizens in Action, a case presenting the question whether “disparate impact” causes of action may be brought under the Fair Housing Act. The Court has recognized but never decided this important issue–that is, whether a policy that is neutral by its terms, in its intent, and in its application can still be illegally discriminatory because it has “disproportionate” racial effects.

For example, suppose a landlord won’t rent to people with felony convictions for drug dealing–should that be illegal just because it turns out that this results in a racial disproportion?

The answer is no, but there’s a new twist here: The Obama administration has issued formal regulations endorsing the disparate-impact approach, but CEO is here to challenge them—and point out that there are a number of reasons why those regulations are entitled to little deference. First and foremost, the meaning of the statute is clear that only actual discrimination–“disparate treatment”–is banned. What’s more, the approach the regulations take makes no sense as a matter of policy.

Unfortunately, the Civil Rights Establishment–which, along with the Obama administration, does not want the Supreme Court to rule on this issue–has now succeeded in pushing the township into settling the case. So once again, under shady circumstances at the eleventh hour, the Court has lost the opportunity to set the record straight on this important legal issue.

But CEO will not give up. We will continue to push cases that present this issue: In fact, we already are involved in a new case that we hope to get before the Supreme Court soon!

All that I’ve discussed so far is just what the Center for Equal Opportunity has been doing in its Supreme Court litigation. But there is much, much more that we do. We help write and file briefs in the lower courts, too, on issues involving racial preferences and other race-based policies like “disparate impact.” We testify before Congress and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on issues like whether felons should automatically have voting rights restored (no), whether there should be a commission set up to lay the groundwork for African-American reparations (no again), whether there should be federal legislation on racial profiling (also no), whether Native Hawaiians should be declared an “Indian tribe” so that they can be eligible for preferential treatment (you guessed it: no), and on many other bills.

We have pointed out that Obama administration legislation like the Dodd-Frank bill and Obamacare contained, in addition to their other problems, unconstitutional racial preference provisions, and we have worked with Congress to get rid of federal contracting preferences based on race. Every day, we check the Federal Register for what the Obama administration is up to in our areas, and have filed dozens of comments and written dozens of articles where we have found problems — which is just about every week.

And all that is just at the federal level: We keep busy at the state and local level, too.

But we need your help to do all this. And we need your help to continue to fight back against the politically correct race profiteers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and their pals in the media.

With liberals in charge of the Senate, White House, and most universities, we need your support now more than ever. The Obama administration will continue to be disastrous for Americans like you and me without CEO around to challenge them on civil rights issues. That’s why your support right now is so crucial.

We understand money is tight right now for many Americans. Just like many families, CEO runs a very tight budget–and we too have taken a big hit by this economy. Unfortunately, in tough times, one of the first cutbacks families make are donations to charitable causes.

CEO has led the nationwide fight against racial preferences — so-called “affirmative action.” We’ve persuaded more than 200 schools to open up their minority-only scholarships to people of all colors. We’ve exposed racial preferences in admissions with hard-hitting studies at over 60 colleges and universities. And we’ve had success after success in all three branches of government.

Will you help by sending a generous, emergency donation of $5,000, 2,500, $1,000, $500, $100, $50 or whatever you can afford today? Any donation before the end of the year will be a big help at this critical time. As always, 100% of your donation is tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law.

I truly appreciate all you’ve done for us in the past. I hope to hear from you again very soon.

Sincerely,

Linda Chavez

Chairman

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