I am really amazed at the downright vicious tone from the left in reaction to the Supreme Court in defense of Michigan's ban on affirmative action by a 6-2 vote. (Elena Kagan recused herself.) Of course, Al Sharpton is promising some sort of action probably a no justice-no peace march in Lansing. What really is sad is the predictable reaction against Clarence Thomas who sided with the majority. The left wing blogosphere is alive with chants of "Uncle Tom", "self-hating Negro" etc.
I have addressed the Clarence Thomas issue many times before and won't repeat it here. What needs to be said now is that it is high time we stop accusing people who oppose affirmative action of being racists. It is simply not true (except for the fringe elements).
The fact is that universities and corporations are all too eager to hire qualified minorities. I can testify that the University of California is certainly not discriminating against blacks and Hispanics in accepting students. It is clear they desire more black and Hispanic students. If this were case of white racism in our universities you wouldn't be seeing so many Asian and Asian-American students on our campuses-at least here in California. And nobody is questioning their qualifications for being in college because they are overwhelmingly excelling.
This is not to suggest some superiority on the part of Asians, but they do come from cultural backgrounds where education is prized and parents have a long tradition of being involved in their children's education.
If black and Hispanic students are under-represented in universities, it is not because they are inferior in some respect, rather it is due to a host of social factors that are in play years before they are of college age. Many are simply not applying for many reasons. Certainly, we want to see more in college and succeeding in college. To get there, there needs to be more attention on what is happening to them during their childhood years. What kind of environment are they growing up in? I think that needs to be done at the family, church and community level. This is not something that Washington can simply throw money at. And as for affirmative action, how long must this go on? It seems to me that whatever positive results it has produced have been done; the doors are open.
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The Supreme Court’s decision to allow voters in states to ban affirmative action programs may have left some readers wondering “where’s the beef?”
California is 6.6% African-American and 38.2% Latino/Hispanic. According to data published in the LA Times, African-American enrollment in the UC system declined from 8% before Proposition 209 to 4.5% this year. At the same time, the figures for the Latino/Hispanic freshmen went from 23% to 37%. Justice Sotomayor argued against banning affirmative action because “race matters.” Meanwhile, Clarence Thomas, the only African-American on the court, agreed with the majority opinion.
While Latino/Hispanic enrollment is not quite on a par with the demographics, it is clear that they were not adversely impacted by Proposition 209.
However passionately some people want a strong affirmative action policy, and other people do not want it, constitutional claims do not turn on whether it is good public policy, but on whether a government process (including referenda) has exceeded the constitutional boundaries of powers delegated to or denied to any or all levels of government. In this case, it is hard to argue that any federal constitutional clause has been violated by the law in question.
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