Michigan Affirmative Action Lawsuit Tossed
Written by Sam on March 18th, 2008LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging a Michigan law that bans racial and gender preferences in government hiring and university admissions.The ruling on Tuesday upholds the constitutionality of a measure approved by Michigan voters in 2006. It had been challenged by groups including the NAACP and the pro-affirmative action group By Any Means Necessary.
The latter group says it will appeal the ruling by U.S. District Judge David Lawson.
Apparently, the NAACP’s idea of equality means everyone gets treated the same except for black Americans who get special preference. American society has evolved well beyond the point of needing the government to dictate integration among the races and genders and institutionalizing discrimination on the majority to give the minority an upper hand is just as bad as the inverse equation.
There will always be prejudice and bigotry as long as human beings walk the earth. Everybody to at least a small minimum holds some kind of prejudice be it towards different people, different ideas, different lifestyles, etc. It’s human nature, but the days of the majority oppressing the rest is long behind us. The racial and gender barriers in this country came down a long time ago and nobody is kept from fulfilling their ambitions because they are black, or female, or of a minority religion. In today’s America if you aren’t succeeding it’s through no other fault than your own.
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I often wonder whether people can actually make ridiculous statements like this with a straight face — especially white kids from a privileged background.
One example: There’s plenty of evidence that people with culturally African-American names — who, on all other observable dimensions are the same — have much lower probabilities of getting jobs and being shown homes. See “Freakanomics” for discussion of at least some of this research. So, yes, there is persistent and harmful racism even today. Without regulation, black people really would be getting oppressed.
Even absent this, you ignore the link between the past and the present. Surely we can all agree that blacks are in worse economic condition than whites. And surely even a dust mite could see that this is related to past discrimination. Even if such discrimination didn’t exist today (which it does), affirmative action helps to end the bad cycle:
discrimination –> low wage + bad education –> unemployment + low job skills + poverty –>
The cycle can continue even without the discrimination. And if you claim that children of poor, stupid people have the same opportunities as the children of wealthy, smart people, perhaps you need to visit school districts in central FL or rural Georgia where not a single student in entire schools can break the mean SAT score.
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Well said.
EDITED: I don’t want to give the impression I agree w/Publius. My Kudos are to Sam.
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” nobody is kept from fulfilling their ambitions because they are black, or female, or of a minority religion.”
I completely agree.
However, the poor (both urban and rural) don’t have access to good education systems, which are necessary for success. They also have to work in order to feed themselves, making finding time for doing homework or studying difficult, and many in urban areas also have to worry about not getting shot.
To say that right now everyone has an equal shot at great success requires ignoring reality.
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Also, I am no fan of affirmative action. It is by its very nature racist.
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More to the point, affirmative action as practiced today doesn’t help those poor disadvantaged kids in rural Georgia. The result is that middle class black kids get into top schools over middle class white kids who have better grades.
If you study the statistical breakdown for U of M admissions from Grutter v. Bollinger there’s no doubt of this.
I would be totally supportive of a program that took disadvantaged backgrounds into account when granting admissions. A program that looks at a black kid and decides he’ll add diversity to the program regardless of whether he went to the same suburban high school as a white kid being passed over does not accomplish this.
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Well said, John
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John’s point seems to be totally lost on Publius, who apparently believes that all blacks are poor and live in the innercity. A pretty insulting stereotype. Affirmative Action should be reformed to give preferences to economically disadvantaged youth of all racial/ethic backgrounds. That would still help those minority children who’s families have not managed to escape the poverty cycle, but not subject anyone else to reverse racism/sexism. Though, such a program would actually require colleges and universities to perform some outreach and go into urban area schools and find academically talented children who are living in difficult circumstances. I have a feeling the while liberal admission officers would rather just sit behind their desks on campus and fill those open slots based on an applicant’s racial demographics. If the liberals don’t have the backbone to support their beliefs with actual outreach, just send recruiters from the athletic departments (you know, those sports crazy conservatives). They are always willing to go where ever they need to, under whatever conditions exist, to signup someone they think is talented.
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Publius is like most white liberals, he doesn’t know any black people, didn’t go to school with any and the ones he does know are far more privileged than your average American. He watches BET, Mississippi Burning and Roots to get an idea of the struggles black people face.
Small matter, the days of affirmative action are gone forever and once all of the remaining court cases have been flushed through our painfully slow judicial system race based preference will be a thing of the past.
Enjoy these last few years of discrimination against non-blacks and non-Hispanics publius, they will have to sustain your sense of American inequality and injustice for decades to come.
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There are one too many judges sitting on the bench rendering wreckless and/or biased decisions.
This judge obviously ignored poor Whites, women, athletes, and the privileged like Bush Jr, all of them have benefited from Affirmative Action.
The President Might Ask Himself, “Wait a minute. How did I get into Yale?”
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/20/timep.affirm.action.tm/
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Sasha,
That article is just plain dumb and ignores the point. If by affirmative action you mean “giving a person preference in college admission based on a particular factor”, than this qualifies. However, that’s not what anyone ever means when they’re talking about affirmative action. This is a separate issue, either a “development case” (the child of a rich person who schools let in so that money flows to the university) or a “legacy” case (keeping up school loyalty by allowing the children of alumni into the school). Both of these overwhelmingly benefit whites.