Politically Correct Discrimination in Silicon Valley and in the Groves of Academe

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

There was an article in the Washington Post a few days ago about Silicon Valley’s “diversity problem.”  The problem is that there aren’t enough minority workers there, if you define “minority” to exclude Asians of course.  But, have no fear, companies are trying hard to remedy this deficiency by hiring more African Americans and Latinos, under pressure from the likes of Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Well, actually there is something to fear here.  It is illegal to sort, hire, and promote people based on race, color, or national origin, as I testified to the U.S. Equal Employment …

Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz

Starbucks Announces New Effort to Break the Law

Roger CleggEmployment

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Starbucks Corp. is teaming up with more than a dozen companies in a commitment to increase hiring of young, minority workers over the next three years.”  It’s unclear from the article exactly how race and ethnicity are to be used in the hiring process.  The definition of “minority” is also not spelled out, though as is often the case some minorities seem to be more equal than others (blacks and Latinos are mentioned, but no one else).   Nor is it clear what the justification is for this nonsense. Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz …

Minority Access to Higher Education

Roger CleggEducation

Last week I testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights at their two-day event on minority access to higher education.  The Commission, which is now dominated 6-2 by liberals, deserves credit for inviting me, since I certainly did not tell the Commissioners what most of them wanted to hear.  Below is a summary of my statement; I’ve deleted the numerous legal and social-science citations, but you can read the full statement here. Introduction.  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Roger Clegg, and I am president and general counsel of the …

Testimony of CEO president and general counsel Roger Clegg before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights regarding “Minority Access to Higher Education”

CEO StaffEducation

Testimony of CEO president and general counsel Roger Clegg before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights regarding “Minority Access to Higher Education” Related posts: 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 Testimony of CEO president and general counsel Roger Clegg before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights regarding “Minority Access to Higher Education” Minority Access to Higher Education Roger Clegg testifies regarding H.R. 40

The Court Should Grant Review (Again) in the Fisher Case

Roger CleggEducation

Earlier this year, the lawyers for Abigail Fisher asked the Supreme Court to grant review — again — of her lawsuit challenging the University of Texas’s use of racial and ethnic preferences in its admissions. The Court will consider whether to grant Fisher’s request at its conference on Thursday this week (May 21 — though I caution that sometimes the Court doesn’t decide immediately on what it will do).  The Center for Equal Opportunity has joined and helped write a brief filed by Pacific Legal Foundation that highlights CEO’s work in this area and that urges the Court to grant …

Just hire the best qualified!

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

This week I thought I’d share with you an exchange of emails that is typical of one part of the day-to-day work that the Center for Equal Opportunity does.  This exchange started when one of our routine news.google.com searches — conducted several times a day, every day — hit an article about a school district’s “equity plan.”  Since the plan seemed clearly to embrace hiring with an eye on race, ethnicity, and sex, this in turn prompted us to send one of our frequent emails to a local government official (here, the school superintendent), pointing out that there are laws …

Jeb Bush, the Washington Post, and Affirmative Action

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

There was a front-page story in the Washington Post last week, headlined “Black enrollment dwindles at major Florida colleges.”  The article takes Jeb Bush to task for his claim that, as governor, he was able to abolish racial preferences in public university admissions in that state and still have a system “where there were more African American and Hispanic kinds attending” than before the preferences were ended.  Bush replaced the racial preferences with a guarantee that the top 20 percent of each graduating high-school class could go to a state university, and added other measures like more college preparatory courses …

Two Steps Forward, One Back

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

Two good items of note this week so far, and one bad.  National Review Online (for which I am a contributing editor) has an excellent article on smashing the bamboo curtain — that is, ending anti-Asian American discrimination in university admissions — here.  It includes an amusing discussion of how “Vijay Chokal-Ingam, an Indian American who happens to be the brother of Fox comedy star Mindy Kaling, revealed that he won acceptance to medical school by claiming to be black. Frustrated at being rejected by medical schools in part because of mediocre test scores and a 3.1 grade point average, …

Destroying Records to Hide Race Discrimination

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

Stanford and Yale are destroying student records that would likely open them to charges of illegal racial discrimination.  See this news story in the Chronicle of Higher Education.  This ought to be a very big deal. And note this:  “Students for Fair Admissions, an advocacy group that has filed lawsuits challenging the race-conscious admissions policies of Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, on Thursday sent Yale and several other Ivy League institutions letters warning that they put themselves at legal risk if they destroy such records.” *          *          * Maryland’s medical marijuana commission will be …

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 …