Update on the Struggle against Universities’ Affirmative Discrimination

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

Last week, National Review Onlineposted my column on “Affirmative Discrimination in Higher Education:  Notes on the Continuing Struggle.” Here it is: Racial and ethnic admission preferences will probably have to be pried from the cold, dead fingers of university officials, but the pressure to end this affirmative discrimination continues. For starters, such preferences are unpopular with most Americans, and most Americans have a dog in this fight. I’ll cite just two recent polls, from somewhat surprising sources. A survey conducted last April by MTV of “millennials” aged 14 to 24 found that 90 percent “believed that everyone should be treated …

Third Time’s the Charm?

Roger CleggDisparate Impact

Here’s hoping the third time’s the charm.  The Supreme Court last week granted review in a case presenting the issue whether “disparate impact” claims may be brought under the Fair Housing Act. This is the third term in a row the Court has done so; in the preceding two, the Left succeeded in scuttling the cases before the Court could decide them.  In a disparate-impact case, the plaintiff does not have to prove racial discrimination, but only a racial disproportion.  So, for example, a landlord who refused to rent to people with a history of drug-dealing, or had income below …

Nonexistent “Resegregation,” Phony Polls, and More

Roger CleggUncategorized

This month the Congressional Quarterly Researcher published this short piece I wrote for them on the (purported) “resegregation” of public schools in the United States: No child today attends a segregated public school.  Not one.  “Segregation” means telling children they cannot attend the same school as children of a different color.  It does not mean a failure to have socially engineered racial balance. It is true that there are educational disparities across racial lines, but racial imbalances in classrooms have little if anything to do with this.   Black children do not need a certain number of white children in a …

English for the Children, Again

Roger CleggUncategorized

In 1998, Californians passed by a 61-to-39 percent margin Proposition 227, Ron Unz’s “English for the Children” ballot initiative. This effectively replaced “bilingual education” with structured English-immersion programs, since the former — while popular with the multicultural Left — does not succeed nearly as well as the latter in accomplishing the single most important job of public schools in immigrant-rich schools, namely teaching non-English-speakers how to speak English. Unfortunately, and despite the great success of Proposition 227 in California, Governor Jerry Brown now has before him a bill that would put a repeal measure back on the ballot. In this op-ed last week …

Disparate Impact, Affirmative Action, and Other Nonsense

Roger CleggUncategorized

Last Tuesday, September 9, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., there was a multipanel event on “Civil Rights in the United States” sponsored jointly by the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute.  Needless to say, these issues are always of interest and have particular salience these days in light of the ongoing drama in Ferguson.  I was the opening speaker on the opening panel, which discussed “Disparate Impact and the Rule of Law: Does Disparate Impact Liability Make Everything Illegal?”  You can listen to the panel discussion here (my opening remarks start at the 5:30 mark …

Affirmative Action, Here and There and Everywhere

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

This recent Wall Street Journal article, “The Trouble with Diversity Initiatives,” covers a new study that identifies problems with using affirmative action in corporate hiring and promotion.  The article notes that, according to the study, companies “looking to diversify their employee ranks should brace for a potential backlash.” Rachel Feintzeig reports:  A meta-analysis from researchers at New York University, University of Michigan and George Mason University traces the roots of stigma that can erupt in organizations that implement affirmative action policies to attract women and racial minorities. The study dug into 45 previous pieces of research to identify the mechanisms that …

A Surprisingly Bad Proposal

Roger CleggUncategorized

Why would federal lawmakers want to encourage racial and ethnic discrimination? Unfortunately, Republican senators Tim Scott (S.C.), Deb Fischer (Neb.), Rob Portman (Ohio), Rand Paul (Ky.), and Marco Rubio (Fla.), as well as Senate Democrat Mark Pryor (Ark.), recently introduced a resolution that would do just that. S. Res. 511 “encourages corporate, academic, and social entities, regardless of size or field of operation” to adopt some version of the National Football League’s “Rooney Rule.” That rule, named after Daniel Rooney, the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, was implemented in 2003. It requires every NFL team with a coach or general-manager …

Enablers General and Other Thoughts on Ferguson

Roger CleggUncategorized

My handy online dictionary defines “enabler” as “a person who encourages or enables negative or self-destructive behavior in another.”  Another online definition:  “one who enables another to persist in self-destructive behavior … by providing excuses or by making it possible to avoid the consequences of such behavior.” And that’s a fair description of the role the Left is playing, or would like to play, with respect to crime and substance abuse in many African American communities, isn’t it?  And this includes, alas, the Attorney General, as the Center for Equal Opportunity’s Linda Chavez discussed in her latest column.   The …

Our Amicus Brief in Fisher v. University of Texas

Roger CleggEducation

This week the Center for Equal Opportunity joined in the filing of the friend-of-the-court brief it helped write in Fisher v. University of Texas.  In this brief, we ask the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to reconsider what we believe to be an erroneous decision by a three-judge panel last month, upholding the University’s use of racial and ethnic admission preferences.  As our supporters know, this is a case in which the Center for Equal Opportunity has been deeply involved from the beginning.  I thought that we would devote most of my email this week to …

Obama Administration Follies

Roger CleggUncategorized

Recently the Obama administration’s Department of Education published a notice in the Federal Register, soliciting applications for the award of a new program:  “The objective of this program is to support a Center for the Study of Distance Education and Technological Advancements at an institution of higher education … to study and develop best practices in postsecondary education for online education and the use of technology-based teaching and learning tools.”  Okay, but then the notice goes on to state that, if a school is more than 85 percent white, then it is not eligible.  Period. As discussed here on an …