Uber Takes Eric Holder’s Bad Advice

Roger CleggEmployment

Uber hired former attorney general Eric Holder to give it some advice about its scandal-ridden workplace. Predictably, much of that advice turned out to be more politically correct than legally sound, much like the Justice Department when he was running it. Alas, the Uber board has already announced that it will adopt Mr. Holder’s recommendations. In particular, Mr. Holder wants Uber to get its numbers right, by hiring more “underrepresented” minorities and women. And so: “The Head of Diversity (or Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer) should set goals with respect to annual improvements in diversity and regularly publish data on …

New York Times and Hard Time

Roger CleggVoting Rights

Last week the New York Times ran my response to an editorial it had written.  The editorial had condemned felon disenfranchisement in the course of praising a recent Alabama bill, and here is my response: I have no quarrel with Alabama’s decision to define better which crimes should lead to disenfranchisement, and I agree with your editorial than some parts of its line-drawing make more sense than others, but it is wrong to say all felon disenfranchisement laws are “racist, pointless, anti-democratic shams.” If a particular law is shown to be racist, the Supreme Court ruled long ago that it …

Partisanship Propagates in Post-ness

Roger CleggUncategorized

Last week the Washington Post has a big, front-page, above-the-fold article, headlined, “Budget would cut civil rights positions” and “Diminished federal role in fighting discrimination” and “Cuts part of broader effort to curtail federal programs on civil rights.” That’s quoting the hard copy; the online version is perhaps even worse: “Trump administration plans to minimize civil rights efforts in agencies.” The article itself declares as a matter of fact that the Trump administration wants “to rein in government programs that promote civil rights” and “dismantle compliance efforts” and that it is “reducing the role of the federal government in fighting …

“Cultural Flavor” and University Admissions

Roger CleggEducation

Some documents recently uncovered at Princeton show that, when awarding a preference on the basis of race or ethnicity, the admissions office wants to make sure that the student being considered has a strong “cultural flavor.” That is, for example, you can’t just be Hispanic, you have to act Hispanic, whatever that means for the admissions office. Offensive, of course, but unsurprising. After all, the “diversity” rationale for such racial and ethnic discrimination is premised on such stereotyping. That is, there are supposed to be “educational benefits” to exposing students to people with different backgrounds and perspectives; if the recipient …

Should the feds require U.S. ballots to be printed in foreign languages?

Roger CleggVoting Rights

Last week I participated in a Federalist Society discussion on voting issues, and pointed out there the policy and constitutional problems with Section 203 of the federal Voting Rights Act. That statute requires some jurisdictions to print ballots and offer election­-related materials in foreign languages. As a constitutional matter, this provision raises serious federalism concerns and equally serious concerns about Congress exceeding its authority to enforce the right to vote regardless of race. Its constitutionality aside, this provision is also objectionable on a variety of policy grounds. I thought that I would use this week’s email to elaborate on all …

Skin Color Determines “Who Gets In”

Roger CleggEducation

A new book by Rebecca Zwick, Who Gets In?, has some interesting data on, among other things, the effect of racial preferences on university admissions.  According to the discussion this week in Inside Higher Ed: What she found is that an admissions system based solely on grades and test scores would result in significant increases in Asian [and white] enrollments and declines in enrollments of underrepresented minority [i.e., black and Latino, and sometimes American Indian] students. … Model for Impact of Different Admissions Models at Colleges That Admit Less Than 10% of Applicants Race/Ethnicity Current If Decisions Based Only on …

Some Good News

Roger CleggUncategorized

I can report some good news this week. Last Friday, when President Trump signed the big appropriations bill keeping the federal government open, he included a presidential signing statement. Here’s the last sentence: “My Administration shall treat provisions that allocate benefits on the basis of race, ethnicity, and gender … in a manner consistent with the requirement to afford equal protection of the laws under the Due Process Clause of the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.” The ellipsis is a list of examples of the federal programs the president has in mind, including minority contracting and subcontracting; preferred treatment for Native Americans, …

A “NO” to Automatic Felon Voting in Nebraska

Roger CleggVoting Rights

The Center for Equal Opportunity has been busy of late with Nebraska — and, specifically, with urging its governor to veto a bill that would automatically allow felons to vote the day they walked out of prison. We wrote directly to the governor, for example, and also published this in the state’s largest newspaper, the Omaha World-Herald: No automatic felon enfranchisement Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts should veto the bill that would automatically restore the right to vote for felons when they walk out of prison (“Ricketts won’t sign bill on felon voting rights,” April 26 World-Herald). If you aren’t willing …

Cognitive Diversity versus P.C. Diversity

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

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 …

Stop the Balkanization

Roger CleggUncategorized

Last fall I wrote about some disturbing changes that the Obama administration wanted to make in the data gathered for the Census. A short 30-day window was given for public comments, but thankfully the Trump administration seems to have misgivings about the proposed changes. And so it has asked for more public comments (via the White House website no less), and extended the deadline to the end of this month. Mike Gonzalez of the Heritage Foundation has done yeoman’s work on this matter. I quoted his “Issue Brief” last fall: “The two most significant proposals [are] creating a new ethno/racial …