Category Archive

We are constantly being told by the proponents of racial, ethnic, and gender preferences in business and academia that diversity results in better problem-solving, learning, and so forth. Now, there are a number of rebuttals to this justification for discrimination, but one of them has always been that, to the extent that there is truth here, it is cognitive diversity that matters rather than diversity of superficial characteristics like skin color. And it does not make sense to use skin color as a proxy for different perspectives and backgrounds. Well, The Harvard Business Review has published an article that provides …

The Washington Post has a “Five Myths about …” series, and over the weekend Valerie Strauss focused on college admissions.  Here’s her fifth “myth”:  “Schools don’t need affirmative action to make diverse classes.”  Ms. Strauss begins by noting that [1] some schools have rejected racial preferences — a.k.a. affirmative action — and still improved racial diversity, and that some critics have pointed out that racial preferences “are [2] unfairly discriminatory and [3] don’t help minority students” and that [4] if “diversity” were really the goal of racial preferences, “`then preferences would be given on the basis of unusual characteristics, not …

Kim M. Rivera, who is chief legal officer and general counsel of HP Inc., is serious in her insistence that law firms doing work for her company meet the racial, ethnic, and gender quotas she has set for them (she calls it “achieving the metric”). She has sent this letter informing them that the company will withhold up to 10 percent of any amount invoiced by the law firms if they “do not meet or exceed our minimal diverse staffing requirements.” She helpfully appends a description of the program. It spells out, for example, that the definition of “diverse” attorneys …

George Leef has a fine column in Forbes that discusses why it’s a bad thing if the federal government leans on corporations to have more “diversity” on their boards.  The whole discussion is excellent, but I especially liked this: In May, 1996, Sister Doris Gormley wrote a letter to T.J. Rodgers, the founder and then-CEO of Cypress Semiconductor. She argued that Cypress ought to diversify its board by adding some women. Replying to her, Rodgers wrote, “Choosing a Board of Directors based on race and gender is a lousy way to run a company. Cypress will never do it. Furthermore, …

The Supreme Court ruled last Thursday in Fisher v. University of Texas, upholding that school’s use of racial and ethnic preferences in undergraduate admissions.  It’s a disappointing decision, but there are a few silver linings.  I discuss all this in the essay below which Inside Higher Ed requested and published: The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the University of Texas’s use of racial preferences in student admissions. The vote was 4 to 3, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy writing the majority opinion, joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor (Justice Elena Kagan was recused). Justice …

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:Thursday June 23, 2016    CONTACT: Roger Clegg(703) 442-0066 The Disappointing Decision in Fisher v. University of Texas CEO Weighs in on SCOTUS’s Affirmative Action Decision (Falls Church, VA)Linda Chavez, chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO), said today:  “We are disappointed in today’s decision, which upholds the use of racial preferences in student admissions at the University of Texas.  Such discrimination is untenable in our increasingly multiracial, multiethnic society – indeed, a society where individual Americans are more and more likely to be multiracial and multiethnic, and where the victims of this politically correct …