Odds & Ends

Roger CleggUncategorized

Here’s a sample of what the Center for Equal Opportunity has been up to in recent weeks. We have weighed in against racial preferences in government contracting with the following cities and counties:  Decatur, Illinois; Leon County, Florida; Guilford County, North Carolina; Asheville, North Carolina; and Fayetteville, North Carolina.  Here’s some typical language: It’s good to make sure contracting programs are open to all, that bidding opportunities are widely publicized beforehand, and that no one gets discriminated against because of skin color, national origin, or sex.  But that means no preferences because of skin color, etc. either — whether it’s …

No to “Racial Impact Statements”

Roger CleggUncategorized

The Federalist Society blogsite has an interesting post by James Scanlan on proposed legislation in New Jersey that would require racial and ethnic impact statements for any legislative measure that affects pretrial detention, sentencing, probation, or parole policies. Mr. Scanlan notes that racial-impact-statement laws have already, alas, been enacted in Connecticut, Iowa, and Oregon and that similar legislation has recently been introduced in Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, and Wisconsin; and, what’s more, frequently the legislation addresses not just post-arrest and conviction policies, but what is made criminal in the first place. Mr. Scanlan does a wonderful job of pointing out how …

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 …

Bad Times for New York Students

Roger CleggDisparate Impact

As the recent articles here and here discuss, the combination of the Obama administration and Mayor Bill de Blasio has proved toxic for safety and order in New York City public schools. On top of that, the New York Board of Regents announced last week that it was no longer going to require aspiring teachers there to pass a literacy test. The reason for this madness is in both instances the same: the felt imperative of getting the numbers right, of getting rid of any standard that might have a “disparate impact” on the basis of race or ethnicity. If discipline standards and literacy requirements …

“Environmental Justice” and the Trump Administration

Roger CleggDisparate Impact

The “disparate impact” approach to civil-rights enforcement is bad policy in any area —employment, voting, housing, credit, school discipline, policing, pizza delivery (yes, it’s been applied there, too), you name it — but it is perhaps most bizarre in environmental law, where it’s labeled “environmental justice.”  The approach in general considers it to be illegal discrimination if a practice has a statistically disproportionate racial effect, even if the challenged practice is neutral by its terms and in its intent, and is evenhandedly applied. So, for example, if a landlord prefers not to rent to people with a record of violent-crime convictions, …

A Bogus Threat to “Desegregation”

Roger CleggGovernment Activity

There was a big front-page story in the Washington Post this week about a bill before the Kentucky state legislature that will, the headlines claim, “threaten” school “desegregation” in Louisville.  Hardly.  My favorite sentence in the story:  “The threat is no longer from protestors in hoods throwing bricks at buses carrying black children into white parts of town, but from state legislators pushing a bill to return to neighborhood schools.”  Nothing but straight news reporting here, folks!  Nothing slanted or tendentious, nosiree! Look:  There is no segregation in Louisville or anywhere else in the country, and there is no threat …

Disparate Impact in Kansas City

Roger CleggDisparate Impact

Last week I spoke at the law school for the University of Missouri at Kansas City against the use of a “disparate impact” approach in civil-rights law.  It went very well, and I thought in this week’s email I would give you a summary account of what I said.  It’s similar to a talk I gave at Harvard Law School not too long ago, with the difference that last week I also had some excellent barbecue afterwards. Under a disparate-impact claim of discrimination, discriminatory motive is irrelevant: It need not be alleged nor proved, and it doesn’t even matter if …

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 …

CEO to Cities: Don’t Do It!

Roger CleggUncategorized

The Center for Equal Opportunity has been particularly active in recent months with its ongoing project of warning state and local governments (especially cities and counties) not to start down the road of awarding government contracts with an eye on race, ethnicity, and sex.  Here’s the sort of memorandum (citations and links omitted) we send to the relevant officials, most recently in Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia: We are writing with regard to a recent news story, which was brought to our attention this week and which discusses the City’s minority contracting efforts. We urge the City to be …

E Pluribus Unum

Roger CleggUncategorized

At last week’s prayer breakfast, President Trump made fun of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s poor ratings as his replacement on Celebrity Apprentice, but he also said this:  “So in the coming days, we will develop a system to help ensure that those admitted into our country fully embrace our values of religious and personal liberty, and that they reject any form of oppression and discrimination.  We want people to come into our nation, but we want people to love us and to love our values — not to hate us and to hate our values.” The President’s remarks about Mr. Schwarzenegger were …