This week (Tuesday, at 10:00 a.m.), the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections will hold a hearing entitled, “The Regulatory and Enforcement Actions of EEOC: Examining the Concerns of Stakeholders.” There will be a live webcast.
The subcommittee’s press release notes that members have “shared concerns with EEOC ‘guidance’ that limits employers’ use of criminal background checks during the hiring process.” Relatedly, it also notes the subcommittee’s interest regarding the Commission’s increasing reliance on cases alleging “systemic” discrimination, rather than focusing its efforts on individual complaints of discrimination.
I say “relatedly” because the common denominator is the Obama administration’s infatuation with the “disparate impact” approach to civil-rights enforcement. That’s where you can be sued for discrimination for no reason other than the fact that your “numbers” are not to some bureaucrat’s liking. Here’s hoping for some aggressive questioning by the subcommittee.
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As is its habit, the Obama administration chose a Friday afternoon recently to announce an important initiative, namely its consideration of “an administrative rule that would facilitate the reestablishment of a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community.” As is also its habit, the administration is attempting an end-run of Congress here, which has repeatedly refused to go down the road of making Native Hawaiians into some sort of Indian tribe — and rightly so. The Supreme Court has made clear that Native Hawaiians are an ethnic group — and they are, conversely, not a political entity — so that singling them out for special treatment is unconstitutional, as well as divisive and unfair. The Bush administration and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights said so, too, as did a National Review cover story, but apparently the Obama administration is committed to playing the race card, whenever and wherever possible.
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The President’s Task Force on the My Brother’s Keeper program issued its 90-day report this month, and there are both unobjectionable and objectionable things in it. But in this post I want to flag again the issue that I highlighted before, namely that it’s a bad idea for the program to be racially exclusive, for both policy and legal reasons. So it’s interesting to read this paragraph in the report’s introduction:
The strategies and recommendations discussed in this report are designed in accordance with the fundamental principle that Federal and federally assisted programs and services may not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, color, or national origin. Nothing in this document should be read to suggest otherwise. Consistent with that principle, My Brother’s Keeper aims to break down barriers to success and to promote increased opportunity for all, regardless of sex, race, color, or national origin. Even in a tight budget environment, by working together to enable broad adoption of what works and to develop innovative approaches, we can continue to make progress for all our youth, including boys and young men of color, especially in communities of greatest need.
How do you read that paragraph? It certainly acknowledges the issue that I and other conservatives raised — and has the administration concluded that they really can’t slam the door in face of colorless (and Asian American) boys (and girls)? I hope so.
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While the Obama administration did not file a brief in the case, Attorney General Eric Holder recently praised Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s “courageous and personal dissent” in Schuette v. BAMN, the Court’s decision this spring upholding the right of Michigan voters to ban racial preferences in public university admissions. Holder’s remarks were, naturally, given at the Justice Department’s “Diversity and Inclusion Speaker Series.”
Now, whatever you think of that dissent, it was certainly not “courageous.” What would be courageous would be for a liberal — like Justice Sotomayor, or Attorney General Holder, for that matter — to speak about against racial preferences in university admissions.
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Once the NBA and NHL playoffs are over, our loyal readers will no doubt be looking for other televised entertainment. Well, here are a few possibilities. First, a link here to yours truly (and others) discussing a number of voting-related issues — including but not limited to whether felons ought to be allowed to vote — on an American Bar association panel last month (some of my remarks are at 19:30-21:10, 33:20-38:40, and 48:00-50:25). Second, here’s another panel on voting issues – this one more on voter ID and whether the Voting Rights Act needs to be amended – at the University of Chicago, also last month (my remarks this time at, for example, 9:30-12:40, 21:50-24:22, 32:50-34:30, 43:30-46:40, 49:00-51:00, 1:06:45-1:09:00). And, finally, here I am on C-SPAN2, at a panel on Sheryll Cashin’s new book, discussing racial preferences in university admissions and related issues (here some of my remarks are at 26:30-40:20, 1:08:05-1:10:40, 1:16:30-1:18:50, and 1:26:50-1:32:04).
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The Center for Equal Opportuity also gets quoted a lot by others. Here are just a few examples from recent weeks: Fox News (us criticizing racially discriminatory scholarships), National Public Radio (criticizing the proposal for reparations), the Washington Times (on school desegregation), the New Jersey Star-Ledger (felon voting), the Daily Caller (racial politics), and a syndicated column by Walter Williams (school discipline).
