(Falls Church, VA) – The Center for Equal Opportunity denounces a recommendation by the vaccine advisory committee (committee) of the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) to allow some residents to skip others in line for the COVID-19 vaccine, based solely on the color of their skin. This preferential treatment based on race would be both unconstitutional and simply odious. On January 14th, the OHA committee recommended prioritizing COVID-19 vaccines for: “Historically underserved communities of color (especially Black/African American/African Immigrant, Hispanic/Latino/a/x and Pacific Islanders) and Indigenous, Tribal and urban based American Indian/Alaska Natives. In short, the people who experience the impacts of …
The Failure of Proposition 16: A Post-Election Analysis
Many Biden Voters Voted No on Prop 16 California voters overwhelmingly voted for Joe Biden, 64% to 34%.1 But most voters also voted against Proposition 16, that sought to bring back the use of race, ethnicity, and gender in public university admissions, government hiring, and government contracting. Roughly 57% voted no on Prop 16; 43% voted yes. 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 Race, Ethnicity, and California Prop 16 Politicized external review panels as unguided “diversity” missiles: California …
Race, Ethnicity, and California Prop 16
California voters overwhelmingly voted for Joe Biden in the recent election, 64% to 34%. To the surprise of California’s elite, most also voted against Proposition 16, that would revise the state constitution and again allow the use of race and gender in university admissions, government hiring, and government contracting. Roughly 57% voted no on Prop 16, 43% voted yes. The following study is a statistical summary of county-level demographic data and a county’s support for Prop 16. It shows the following: • There was no correlation between proportion of Hispanics and votes for or against Prop 16 (p. 8). • Counties with greater percentages of …
CEO Condemns Appeals Court Ruling in Harvard Case
The Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) today criticized the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruling upholding Harvard’s use of racial and ethnic preferences in its undergraduate admissions. CEO urges the Supreme Court to now take the case. CEO Chairman Linda Chavez noted, “Data from Harvard’s own internal analysis of its admissions criteria suggest that low-income Asian American applicants with higher grades and test scores may have been excluded in favor of wealthier blacks and Hispanics. Though this ruling was predictable from the oral argument, we are hopeful the Supreme Court will make the right decision and strike …
New CEO Report: If California Restores Race Discrimination: Implications for Higher Education
(Falls Church, VA) The Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) today released a new report, If California Restores Race Discrimination: Implications for Higher Education, which demonstrates how race may once again dominate the college admissions process if voters adopt Proposition 16 on the ballot in California this November. Proposition 16 seeks to override a state constitutional ban on racial and ethnic preferences, adopted overwhelmingly by California voters in a 1996 ballot initiative. CEO’s report, available here, was written by research fellow Dr. Althea Nagai. The study concludes that when colleges use race as a factor in the admissions process, it is …
CEO press release on Title IX Regulations on Sexual Harassment
The Center for Equal Opportunity is pleased to join other civil liberties and civil rights organizations in welcoming the effective date today of the new federal Department of Education rules for universities and K-12 schools to use in investigating and adjudicating accusations of student- on-student sexual harassment and assault. Adopted in May after a careful process that took more than two years and considered more than 124,000 comments on the proposed rules, the regulations will require educational institutions to act impartially and without bias or prejudgment and to use procedures including live hearings, cross-examination of all witnesses, and other procedures …
Woody Allen and Affirmative Action
In his recently published memoir, Woody Allen writes: I’ve taken some criticism over the years that I didn’t use African-Americans in my movies. And while affirmative action can be a fine solution in many instances, it does not work when it comes to casting. I always cast the person who fits the part most believably in my mind’s eye. He’s strictly meritocratic, in other words. As he has said elsewhere: “I cast only what’s right for the part. Race, friendship means nothing to me except who is right for the part.” In light of Mr. Allen’s insistence that, nonetheless, “affirmative …
It’s Not That Complicated
The struggle against the Left on racial matters — in which I include politically correct race-based decisionmaking, identity politics, and related and supporting ideologies — is part legal and part cultural. The legal part is straightforward enough and is going tolerably well. The Center for Equal Opportunity opposes the use of racial preferences, which are now legally constrained to a degree but still far too common in education, employment, and contracting; and it opposes the use of the “disparate impact” approach in the enforcement of our civil-rights laws, which is likewise constrained but not nearly enough. I’m reasonably optimistic right now that we will continue to make progress — maybe …
Good Briefs in the Harvard Case
Kudos to the Department of Justice for the amicus brief it filed last week on behalf of the Asian-American plaintiffs in their lawsuit against Harvard University for its use of racial preferences in student admissions. Bear with me while I give a little more detail on why the brief deserves special praise. The law requires that, when race is considered in student admissions — as Harvard admits it is here — the school do so only in a way that passes the two prongs of “strict scrutiny”; that is, that the discrimination be “narrowly tailored” to a “compelling interest.” Alas, …
We Need More Bills Like This
A bill banning preferential treatment on the basis of race, ethnicity, and sex in public contracting, education, and employment — a.k.a. “affirmative action” — has advanced through the Idaho legislature’s relevant house committee. The heart of the bill is straightforward and should not (in a sane world) be controversial: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.” Whatever finally happens in Idaho, here’s hoping that state legislators in more states follow Idaho representative …