Jerry Brown and Racial Neutrality
Liberals just can’t tolerate a race-neutral government, arguably the best and least intrusive way to keep racial discrimination at bay. But we racial preferences opponents commended Governor Jerry Brown earlier this month for vetoing SB 185, a bill that would have restored racial preferences in California.
State Senator Ed Hernandez introduced the bill earlier this year to authorize the University of California and California State University systems to consider race in admissions, despite a law barring the practice at taxpayer-supported schools. Fifteen years ago, 54 percent of California voters approved Proposition 209, a constitutional amendment that reads in part:
The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.
To the lay eye, the language is clear and plain. To a lawmaker’s eye, the language is ambiguous, fluid, and subject to the whims of interest groups. Various groups have challenged the law, and California’s highest court ruled six to one that Proposition 209 was constitutional. Groups opposed to racial neutrality in government march on.
Liberal Brown and the left-leaning Los Angeles Times agree that taxpayer-supported universities should be allowed to lower admissions standards for certain racial and ethnic minorities, but both believe the judiciary should interpret the law, as it is constitutionally charged to do. In a letter to the state senate, Brown said the “constitutional system of separation of powers requires that the courts — not the Legislature — determine the limits” of the law. The newspaper opposed the legislature’s attempt to restore racial preferences:
As much as this page exhorted Californians to vote against Proposition 209 in 1996, the constitutional amendment that bars affirmative action in state hiring and admissions at public colleges is now the law, having survived numerous legal challenges. A bill passed by the Legislature this year that would allow the University of California and California State University to “consider” race, gender and so forth in the admissions process is a clear attempt to flout that law. Gov. Jerry Brown should veto SB 185, which would thwart the will of the voters even if it survived a certain legal challenge.
…
We understand the frustration of the initiative’s opponents, after multiple losses in court. Yet as a matter of principle, we also object to flouting the will of the voters who placed the measure into the state Constitution.
What’s even more amazing about the race-baiting fantasy world the left lives in, is that when they dropped reverse discrimination at the UC System, white enrollment went DOWN. Only Asian enrollment went up until they are now a majority at Berkeley.
There is no such thing as ‘race-neutral’ or ‘ugly-neutral’ or ‘fat-neutral’ or ‘a$$hole-neutral’…
There is only such thing as:
Some people are stupid.
Some people are smart
Some people smell good
Some people just fart.
Some people are ugly.
Some people are fat.
Some people have warts
Some people wear hats (to cover their balding).
Some people are pretty.
Some people drink beer.
Some people are smart.
Some people can engineer.
Some people are cool.
Some people are dorks.
Some people are fools.
Some people are short.
Some people are tall.
Some people are huge.
Some people are small
Some people are deluged (by fantasies of grandeur)
Some people can see
Some people can walk
Some people can’t hear
Some people can’t talk
Some people can’t care
Some people can’t feel
Some people can murder
Some people aren’t real.
Some people are rude
Some people are nice
Some people are black
Some people white [as rice].
Some people can’t think
Some people can’t swim
Some people feel happy
Some people are grim.
Some people are liars
Some people seek truth
Some people start fires
Some people seek youth.
Some people need life
Some people want hope
Some people want work
Some people smoke dope
Some people are black
Some people are brown
Some people are asian
Some people are clowns…
And NONE of these people should be a “Special INTEREST” group.
/end
That’s a good one!
Regarding a$$holes…
Everybody has one.
Not everybody IS one.
or humps them ;p
First of all, nothing in the US Constitution empowers the federal government to have anything whatsoever to do with education at any level, whether it be funding it, loaning money for it, setting standards for it, credentialing or accrediting it, or dictating how it should be run. The only legitimate exception would be the service academies. Nothing else.
It’s just as foolish for the States to have anything to do with education. All education should be strictly LOCAL and without government involvement. When that was the custom throughout the US, the literacy rate was higher than now. People spoke Latin and Greek as well as various other languages. Now we’re lucky if people who were born here can speak understandable English.
Oh, and by the way…College tuition is a ripoff. Postpone college until the bubble bursts.
Erm, where is comes to “diversity”, Congress is explicitly given the power under the 14th Amendment to prohibit State racial discrimination.
(Never mind that for forty years the Feds have been *mandating* racial discrimination)
When we hold the politicians feet to the fire for ignoring the Constitution, with jail time. We will get their attention. If their actions are Treasonous or Seditious, I suggest the Death penalty if found guilty. After all we are in a time of WAR. Muslims have declared war on us. We are not responding well for a nation that is supposed to be on the cutting edge. But with all the politically correct speak nothing gets done. Which is the intent. We will suffer and die, who is responsible? Us, or the politicians?
First, I was interested to see the LA Times respecting the will of the voters. Not that I voted for it (I didn’t) but it’ll be interesting to see if they take the same position with Prop. 8, which outlawed gay marriage.
Second, there’s an interesting point to be made here. Liberals are all about diversity in certain ways, but in others, not so much. The Supreme Court, for most of its history, consisted of a bunch of white guys. Nowadays we have a black man (Thomas), three females (Sotomayor, Ginsburg, and Kagan), a Latino (Sotomayor) and three Jews (Ginsburg, Kagan, Breyer). That theoretically means that the Court is now more “diverse” than it was in the past. Back in the day, it almost always consisted of a bunch of Protestant Christians, and now it’s more diverse…or wait, it isn’t. These days, it’s 6 Catholics and 3 Jews. Oh, and the law schools they went to? Half a century ago, two of the justices didn’t even graduate from law school, and the schools they went to were diverse and spread around the nation…now, among 9 Supreme Court Justices, there are just 2 law schools: Harvard and Yale. If you didn’t go to law school in New England, you’re not qualified to be a Supreme Court justice. So much for diversity…
Perhaps it would be good to prohibit any law school graduate from holding a seat on the supreme court.
“Liberal Brown and the left-leaning Los Angeles Times agree that taxpayer-supported universities should be allowed to lower admissions standards for certain racial and ethnic minorities,”
Doesn’t this also lower the quality of the universities in question? After all, lower standards are lower standards, regardless of race. So in trying to help certain racial and ethnic minorities, the universities are actually harming their own reputations by lowering their standards. And this is a good thing? No wonder, more and more, college degrees are worthless.
LS,
As I recall, you and I are both in NJ. A number of years ago, it was revealed that black students accepted to Prinecton had SAT scores just slightly above the average at Rutgers.
Disproportionately, these students, when accepted to elite schools, drop out, because they are overmatched.
They should ask themselves, “which is better for me – being a Rutgers graduate, or a Princeton drop-out?”
They won’t ask that, of course.
Luckily for the minorities, as long as affirmative action continues in school admissions/grading/graduation, job hiring/promotion/discipline/retention, it doesn’t matter whether you graduate or not, or are competent or not, as long as you’re the right color.
Pathological in this case is in the eye of the beholder…for those who continue to advocate for racial preferences it is simply consistent behavior…
…Consistent with maintaining the entire racial grievance industry. Lots of jobs (I wonder truly how many ?), businesses, and academic departments at universities depend on never admitting that the issue is sufficiently mitigated.
LaShawn,
Yours is a courageous voice of reason and compassion. The nation should be listening. Let’s all pray the Supreme Court accepts the 5th circuit case and reverses the terrible racially divisive policy adopted in Grutter. Americans–all Americans, irrespective of our skin color–will be the winners when these race preference policies end. Thanks for all you do to advance us toward Dr. King’s goal of a society where the content of our character is the only thing that matters; not the color of our skin.
We can blame this diversity business on Jung with his theory of the racially-specific unconscious. I wrote many blogs on the topic. Freud was never “in”, while Jungian theorizing penetrates the schools that promote “multiculturalism.” See http://clarespark.com/2010/05/10/jungians-rising/.
Or see http://clarespark.com/2011/10/19/sex-without-freud/. This link answers the author’s last sentence: where is Freud when we need him? Answer: he was always attacked from all parts of the political spectrum. And he was accepted only by upper-class bohemians. Those psychiatrists who write the DSM manuals, are interested in social cohesion, not reconstruction of personality through the analysis of early childhood trauma and subsequent traumas that re-energize these early hurts.
Given the number of Americans of mixed racial backgrounds, is race really and issue any more? I mean other than to give the race baiters employment.
Even our President is half white, half black. Yet liberal society insists on referring to him as black. He’s no more black than he is white. Except for racial profiling and affirmative action.
Time to move on America.
According to Groseclose (Left Turn), a conservative UCLA econ prof who sits on the admissions committee, the CA schools immediately circumvented the spirit and the letter of 209 in various clever ways, including making sure that all committee members read applicants admission essays, which in the case of nearly all minorities, identify the applicant by race. Another is granting points for low socio-economic status. The schools made no secret of this, and the Times glowingly reported on it.
This pretty clearly amounts to a de facto racial preference system, and there have been few if any howls of rage about the violations.
So one rhetorical question is why challenge 209 in the face of an open and working racial preference system?
The answer is pretty obvious.
Democrats will fight to the death to keep personal responsibility from minorities. The race hustlers have convinced the the non-white communities that they can only survive with massive government support, which the Democrats provide. Right now the Democrats get 90+% of the Black vote. Most of it because of the hand outs they provide, coupled with the knee-jerk defense of any, and all, activities or statements made by minorities. The only way for Democrats to keep that monolithic voting bloc, is to keep playing the race card.
Democrats believe minorities don’t measure up with their feet and say they do with their rhetoric. When it suits them, minorities are equal, when it doesn’t, they’re not.
We can’t talk about African countries as being not up to our level in our discourse but in fact we hold their hand to do everything, in direct denial of the fact they cannot measure up.
Bottom line: liberals are nuts.
University of California discriminates against Californians. Chancellor Robert J Birgeneau ($500,000 salary) displaces Californians qualified for public university education at Cal. for a $50,600 payment and a foreign passport. Need for transparency at UC Berkeley has never been so clear.
UC Berkeley, ranked # 70 Forbes, is not increasing enrollment. Birgeneau accepts $50,600 FOREIGN students at the expense of qualified instate Californians.
UC Regent Chairwoman Lansing and President Yudof agree to discriminate against Californians for foreigners. Birgeneau, Yudof, Lansing need to answer to Californians.
Opinions make a difference; email UC Board of Regents marsha.kelman@ucop.edu