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Jewish World Review Feb. 19, 1999 /3 Adar, 5759
Mona Charen
Depends what you
(JWR) --- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com) WHAT IF KENNETH STARR AND THE REPUBLICANS had included the across-the-board
lawlessness of this administration in their indictment of the president?
Might they have received a more respectful hearing from the public? We'll
never know, but now comes more evidence of it.
President Clinton is seeking to reappoint Bill Lann Lee as assistant
attorney general for civil rights. In the fall of 1997, the president
nominated Lee for the post, only to see his nomination fail in the Senate.
But in violation of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, President Clinton gave
him the job anyway. Lee is called "acting," but everyone knows that this is
a mere fig leaf to avoid Senate confirmation. Someone should ask the
president about this, though he may say it depends on how you define
"acting."
Perhaps the next battle over Lee's nomination will shed some light on the
fact that this administration and most of the educational institutions in
the country, as well as many state and local governments, have been flouting
the law on racial classifications for some time.
Here is a typical scenario: A student applies to college or graduate school
and is rejected. Soon thereafter, he discovers that a classmate whose test
scores and grades were significantly lower than his own was accepted by the
same institution. Is that legal? The Center for Individual Rights
(1-202-833-8400) wants that student to know that it is not and has
accordingly published two slim pamphlets -- one for students and the other
for university trustees -- explicating the law.
Most Americans have no idea that naked racial preferences are illegal.
Those who have studied the history of civil rights legislation recall that
Sen. Hubert Humphrey promised to eat the Civil Rights Act of 1964, page by
page, if it were ever interpreted as permitting racial quotas or reverse
discrimination. The happy warrior died before having to make good on that
promise. But as everyone knows, reverse discrimination did become the order
of the day and remains so.
Yet discriminating on the basis of race -- even for the apparently noble
purpose of remedying past societal discrimination against certain groups or
to achieve racial diversity -- is flatly illegal and has been for 20 years,
since the Supreme Court decided the Bakke case.
Justice Lewis Powell's opinion in that case, in which he allowed that race
could be a "plus factor" when otherwise equally qualified candidates were
vying for the same spot, has been twisted beyond recognition to permit every
kind of quota and set-aside.
A college or university, the CIR informs us, is not permitted to set aside
a particular number of slots in its classes for particular racial groups in
order to compensate for "societal" discrimination or even to achieve
"diversity." Set-asides are a lawful remedy only if the institution itself
discriminated in the past. As Justice Powell wrote: "If petitioner's purpose
is to assure within its student body some specified percentage of a
particular group merely because of its race or ethnic origin, such a
preferential purpose must be rejected ... (as) discrimination for its own
sake. This the Constitution forbids."
In the first year after the University of Texas Law School abandoned its
preferential admissions program for blacks and others, minority enrollment
plummeted, and there were dire predictions in the press of a return to "lily
white" schools. But in the year following, minority enrollment rebounded.
Ending preferences does not end higher education for minorities.
Proponents of quotas and preferences believe fervently that they are
pro-minorities whereas those who believe in strict colorblindness are
anti-minorities. The most eloquent reply to this prejudice was offered by
Justice Antonin Scalia in the 1995 case of Adarand vs. Pena: "To pursue the
concept of racial entitlement -- even for the most admirable and benign of
purposes -- is to reinforce and preserve for future mischief the way of
thinking that produced race slavery, race privilege and race hatred. In the
eyes of government, we are just one race here. It is American."
mean by "acting"
In his 14 months in office, Lee, with the full resources of the Justice
Department, has pursued exactly the policies this administration has claimed
it does not favor: racial preferences in education, government contracting,
employment and voting.
Lee
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