This year the Supreme Court had agreed to resolve a fundamental question about the Fair Housing Act that it has never answered: Can you be found guilty of racial discrimination if you have not engaged in racial discrimination? Suppose, for example, that the owner of an apartment complex decides that she does not want to rent units to individuals who have been convicted of drug offenses. She makes that decision without regard to race, her policy on its face does not treat people differently because of race, and indeed she enforces it in an evenhanded way, so that it applies equally to …
Voting rights fact-check
A New York Times headline Thursday declared: “Texas’ Stringent Voter ID Law Makes a Dent at the Polls.” A careful reading of the article will leave many readers scratching their heads about that title. The article begins by noting that three prominent Texans — state judge Sandra Watts, state senator Wendy Davis, and state attorney general Greg Abbott — all had photo IDs that did not quite match their names on official voter rolls, and so all had to sign affidavits before they could vote. But . . . they all could and did vote. Jim Wright — another Texan, whom the Times helpfully …
What CEO has been up to …
We recently prepared this one-page summary of the Center for Equal Opportunity’s activities over the past year, and thought that we ought to share it with you. 2013-2014 CEO Activities Report In addition to our speaking (on campuses, coordinating other conservative groups, and with a wide variety of media) and writing (in National Review Online and other magazines, newspapers, and publications), here are just a few highlights of CEO’s work this past year. We continue to get unmatched bang for the buck. Schuette v. BAMN – The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit had held that Michigan’s …
Dodd-Frank “Diversity”
On Friday a number of Obama administration agencies with financial-sector regulatory responsibilities jointly published in the Federal Register a proposed “Policy Statement Establishing Joint Standards for Assessing the Diversity Policies and Practices of Entities Regulated by the Agencies.” The statement comes as a result of Section 342 of the Dodd-Frank legislation, which requires these agencies each to “establish an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion” that, in turn, is to develop diversity and inclusion standards for workplaces and contracting. The proposed statement is even worse than the bill itself, since it aggressively applies not only to the agencies themselves but also to all …
BAMN! The Center for Equal Opportunity Zaps Racial Preferences
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Schuette v. BAMN, a case in which a federal appellate court held — astonishingly — that Michigan voters somehow violated the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause by endorsing equal treatment for everyone regardless of race or sex. At issue is Proposal 2 (the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative), a 2006 ballot measure that amended the state constitution to provide that state and local government agencies (including public universities) “shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national …
Brown v. Board of Education …
Here’s the essay I just did this for National Review Online’s “Education Week”: It’s depressing that, nearly six decades after Brown v. Board of Education, the legality and morality of racial discrimination in education continues to be a contested issue. Consider: Last month the Obama administration issued “guidance” for universities on the meaning of the Supreme Court’s decision last June in Fisher v. University of Texas. The guidance predictably reiterates that the administration “strongly support[s] diversity” — including, of course, using discrimination in order to achieve it — but, as a legal matter, this is irrelevant if a school is sued, …
The Supreme Court Returns!
The Supreme Court is back this week, and on its docket are two cases the Center for Equal Opportunity helped persuade the Court to hear. This comes on the heels, of course, of the important role that CEO played in two important civil-rights cases from last term: Fisher v. University of Texas and Shelby County v. Holder. It’s been a busy time for us. But on to this term’s cases. * * * The first case is Schuette v. By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that Michigan’s Proposal 2 violates …
Constitution Day
Last week I spoke at the Cato Institute’s celebration of Constitution Day (September 17) about the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Shelby County v. Holder. The Center for Equal Opportunity had played an important role in this case, in which the Supreme Court struck down the coverage formula for Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. We had urged the Court to take the case, urged it to strike down Section 5 — and, indeed, we had testified before Congress in 2006 that the law should not be reauthorized in the first place. We pointed out that, in addition to …
Bowdoin and Against For Discrimination
Below is my review of Randall Kennedy’s new book, For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law, which appeared on National Review Online. But first, I wanted to note also that the always formidable Harvey Mansfield recently provided his take on the National Association of Scholar’s important Bowdoin study, and that prompted an exchange between him and the school’s professor Paul Franco here in the Claremont Review of Books. The Bowdoin study – documenting the political correctness and progressive politics run amok at that school – continues to have an impact and, one hopes, will prompt some real soul-searching at …
Two Down, Two to Go
Here’s a slightly expanded version of an op-ed of mine that the Washington Times published last week: While 50 years ago this week, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., expressed his dream that our children not be judged by “the color of their skin,” that vision is not yet a reality. Racial preferences are used in four principal areas: employment, contracting, education, and voting. The Supreme Court has just handed down important decisions in the latter two categories. In Fisher v. University of Texas, it has ruled that the strict scrutiny given to racial preferences in university admissions must indeed be …