Loyal supporters of the Center for Equal Opportunity know that we don’t like racial preferences in university admissions (a.k.a. “affirmative action”). For example, they can read here and here how I’ve urged the Supreme Court to rule in Fisher v. University of Texas, where we have played a leading role and in which that practice is challenged. They should also make generous year-end donations to the Center for Equal Opportunity, because I’m pretty sure the Supreme Court has already mandated that. This week, however, rather than discuss what the Court should do, I thought I would discuss in broad terms …
Fisher and the Protestors
For my email this week, I thought I would share with you this lightly edited version of an op-ed that Joshua Thompson (of Pacific Legal Foundation) and I wrote for Forbes. Josh and I also wrote an amicus brief for the Supreme Court in this case. This week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, in which that school’s use of racial preferences in undergraduate admissions has been challenged. Some may speculate that the recent protests over racial issues, at the University of Missouri and elsewhere, might deter the justices from issuing …
Actual versus Superficial “Diversity”
The Chronicle of Higher Education has a commentary piece titled, “Want More Innovation? Get More Diversity.” As you would expect, it is a plea for universities to hire more African American faculty, in particular, because diversity in background and perspective will (according to some dubious data) result in more creative and innovative thinking. The piece concludes that since “even if people from different backgrounds have exactly the same skills and knowledge, diverse teams may still do better than more homogeneous ones,” therefore administrators should “[s]top hiring people who look like you.” My posted response: Three obvious problems with this (there …
Some Advice for University Officials — and Happy Thanksgiving!
Each campus protest is different, and the demands in each are different, too. Some are illegal (racial quotas for faculty hiring), some are themselves otherwise racist and divisive (demands of acknowledgment of “white privilege”), some might even be worth considering (though even a reasonable demand should not be considered if violently or otherwise illegally made). But here’s an easy one from Dartmouth: If protestors assault other students and deliberately keep them from studying — the only thing students are really supposed to have to do at a university — then the president should call in the police, and the thugs …
CEO’s Activities Report 2015
Dear CEO Supporter, We wanted to bring you up to speed on all of the important work we are doing at the Center for Equal Opportunity. Here is CEO’s activities report for the last year: Areas of CEO Interest Opposing Racial and Ethnic Preferences. As America becomes an increasingly multiethnic, multiracial society—as, indeed, individual Americans become increasingly multiethnic and multiracial—a legal regime that sorts people by skin color and what country their ancestors came from, and treats some better and others worse on this basis, becomes increasingly untenable. Fortunately, the principle of colorblindness is frequently enshrined in the laws of …
Carl Cohen’s Excellent Book
I’m devoting my email this week to a review I recently wrote for the Federalist Society’s Engage magazine. The review is of Carl Cohen’s excellent book, A Conflict of Principles: The Battle Over Affirmative Action at the University of Michigan. You can find the full review here (it includes the footnotes I’ve omitted from this version). Professor Cohen chronicles a long fight in which the Center for Equal Opportunity was involved every step of the way – and the book has kind things to say about us, by the way. * * * This book is important for anyone who …
The Washington Post’s Not-So-Fine Op-Ed
An op-ed in the Washington Post recently calls on K–12 schools to improve their racial and ethnic mixes in order to close academic achievement gaps — most specifically, that is, to help black students learn better by making sure they go to schools with plenty of white students in them. It’s a fine op-ed, except for just a few problems: The terms “integration” and “segregation” are not defined, which is a problem since they are typically misdefined by liberals, as a matter of both law and policy. There is no discussion of where the racial achievement gaps might come from, which is …
Discreditable Accreditors
Professor Gail Heriot, who moonlights as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, had an excellent Wall Street Journal op-ed last week that made two important points. The first is that the “mismatch” that results from racial preferences in university admissions is an important factor in the relative dearth of African American graduates in the STEM disciplines. The second is that, while some of the pressure to use these preferences is self-imposed, a lot of it is not — and, in particular, much of it comes from accrediting agencies. She calls on Sen. Lamar Alexander and Reps. John …
Cops and Criminals Are Not Morally Equivalent
In this week’s email, I’d like to share with you an essay that I coauthored and that was published last week on National Review Online: Recently the acting head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Principal Deputy Attorney General Vanita Gupta, gave a very long speech for the “Community Policing Summit” hosted by the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Jersey. The speech was a longer and more detailed version of remarks delivered repeatedly by Obama administration officials these days, so it is worth reading with some care. Given the most charitable interpretation, the speech presumes a moral equivalence between …
Berkeley’s “White Initiative”
The University of California–Berkeley has announced a new “White Initiative,” designed to increase the number of whites at the school. Those numbers have gone down since voters in California passed a ballot initiative that forbids discrimination and preference in, among other things, public universities, including admissions. The new initiative aims to reverse this trend by increasing white applications and enrollment through, for example, encouraging white-only scholarship programs, to be funded by private donors. The university apparently believes that, by proceeding in this way, it is not discriminating or granting preferential treatment on the basis of “race” or “color” or “ethnicity” or “national origin,” …