Diversity Myths

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

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 …

HP Mandates Quotas

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

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 …

Keeping an Eye on College Admission Officers

Roger CleggEducation

Ashley Thorne, executive director of the National Association of Scholars, recently posted an essay on Minding the Campus (“Dismissing the Reality of Affirmative Action”) that was both kind and accurate regarding the word of the Center for Equal Opportunity. The Gallup Organization and Inside Higher Ed co-hosted a conference in Washington on September 15, “Not out of the Woods:  Colleges, Diversity and Affirmative Action after a Year of Protest and Court Battles.”  Most of those in attendance were university officials of one kind or another.  Ms. Thorne, who attended the whole conference (I did not), said those officials were determined …

We’re Watching You, College Officials

Roger CleggEducation

The Pope Center for Higher Education Policy asked me to write about my recent appearance at a conference in Washington, D.C., at which I warned college officials that the Center for Equal Opportunity was watching their use of racial and ethnic preferences in admissions.  Here’s the essay that I sent the Pope Center and that it published (there’s also a link here): The Gallup Organization and Inside Higher Ed co-hosted a conference in Washington on September 15. They called it “Not Out of the Woods: Colleges, Diversity and Affirmative Action after a Year of Protest and Court Battles.” Most of …

More Cypress, Less Facebook

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

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, …

Racial Preferences in Higher Education

Roger CleggEducation

A couple of months ago, the Supreme Court handed down its disappointing decision in Fisher v. University of Texas, and race and higher education continue to be in the news.  This past week has seen controversy over student housing ads expressing a preference of “people of color” and separate student sections in courses for minority students, and there’s been a call this week for “diversity” to be graded in school rankings by U.S. News & World Report — all bad ideas, in my humble opinion, and each showing in its own way why politically correct racial discrimination should not be …

A Disappointing Decision in Fisher II

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

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 …

The Disappointing Decision in Fisher v. University of Texas

CEO StaffRacial Preferences

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 …

Trump Talking Points for Fisher

Roger CleggEducation

As we await the Supreme Court’s decision in Fisher v. University of Texas–Austin, challenging the school’s use of preferences for African Americans and Latinos in admissions, I was thinking about what I would like to hear Donald Trump say when asked about the opinion (I know what Hillary Clinton will say).  Normally, I would hope that the Republican nominee, at least, would be supportive of the expected Court decision rejecting or at least limiting such preferences, but it’s more complicated with Mr. Trump.  The trouble is that, if he said the right thing, then the response of the Left, the …

Affirmative Discrimination for Firefighters?

Roger CleggEmployment

There are, alas, no minorities or women in the Cranston fire department — the only Rhode Island city so stained.  But the city is aware of the ignominy and is aggressively trying to find suitable applicants — and indeed it admits to “loosening” its hiring requirements in order to solve this problem. But just a second:  Is it really a good idea to be lowering standards for those in charge of saving other people’s lives?  Councilman Michael J. Farina apparently thinks not.  “Maybe minorities don’t want to be firefighters,” he says. “I can’t see lowering our standards” to hire them, …