Answering Linda Greenhouse’s Question

Roger CleggEducation

Linda Greenhouse recently had a meandering New York Times column about Fisher v. University of Texas – in which  the Supreme Court is considering a challenge to racial and ethnic preferences in student admissions –  in which she unhappily concedes that the “diversity” rationale is the only way that universities can legally justify their use of such preferences. And she poses the core question that follows this way: “If diversity is the only acceptable rationale for taking account of race, as the court insists, then what is the rationale for diversity?” Luckily (or unluckily) for her, I answered this question …

Unkingly Discrimination

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

As  Americans honor the memory and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it is sobering to see how far many of our public entities have strayed from Dr. King’s important message about equality. A case in which the Center for Equal Opportunity joined and helped write an amicus brief this month makes that sad point very well. So entrenched have racial preferences become that, last March, a federal judge tossed out a case against government-mandated discrimination, Midwest Fence v. United States Department of Transportation. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit heard oral argument in an appeal …

UT President Bill Powers speaks with media after U.S. Supreme Court hearing.Photo: Paul Fetters.

Fisher v. University of Texas Wrap-Up – Whew!

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

It’s been a busy last couple of weeks for us here at the Center for Equal Opportunity, with the oral argument before the Supreme Court in Fisher v. University of Texas and all the media coverage before and after.  In our email this week, I’ll be focusing on some of what we’ve written — most of what you’ll read below is “truth squad” work that first appeared on National Review Online — and said about the case, which involves a challenge to that school’s use of racial and ethnic preferences in undergraduate admissions. A Vehement Agreement with Chief Justice Roberts …

CEO President Roger Clegg debates Scalia's comments on affirmative action

CEO President Roger Clegg debates Justice Scalia’s comments on affirmative action

CEO StaffRacial Preferences

http://www.msnbc.com/melissa-harris-perry/watch/debating-scalias-comments-on-affirmative-action-585279555618 Related posts: Fisher v. University of Texas Wrap-Up – Whew! Good News: Trump Rescinds Obama’s “Affirmative Action” Guidance Affirmative Action, Here and There and Everywhere TESTIMONY OF ROGER CLEGG, PRESIDENT AND GENERAL COUNSEL, CENTER FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITY BEFORE THE U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS REGARDING THE PROPOSED EMPLOYMENT NON-DISCRIMINATION ACT

Fearless Predictions on How Racial Preferences Will End

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

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 …

Actual versus Superficial “Diversity”

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

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 …

Yale launches five-year, $50 million initiative to increase faculty diversity

Some Advice for University Officials — and Happy Thanksgiving!

Roger CleggEducation

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 …

(iStock)

The Washington Post’s Not-So-Fine Op-Ed

Roger CleggEducation

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 …

Madness in the Groves of Academe

Roger CleggEducation

I recently participated, at ScotusBlog’s kind invitation, in its symposium on the Fisher II case, and you can read my contribution to it here.  There were no surprises in the arguments made in favor of the University of Texas’s racial discrimination in student admissions, but I did want to address briefly one particularly outrageous claim, since I’ve seen it made elsewhere.  The argument was (and variations on it have been) made that, if you oppose universities’ giving a preference on the basis of race or ethnicity, it follows that “if an applicant wrote an admissions essay about volunteering for an …

Getting serious about racial discrimination

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

That’s the title I gave this essay, which I was invited to write for ScotusBlog and which was posted last week.  Here it is: In my contribution to this symposium, I’m going to discuss how the Supreme Court should apply “strict scrutiny” to the use of racial and ethnic preferences in university admissions.  I will assume here that the door will be left ajar for this kind of discrimination, but must note briefly at the outset that I think the door should be shut on it, as I discussed at more length in the symposium for Fisher v. University of …