Regents of the University of California v. Bakke<\/a> SCOTUS decision in 1978. In fact, the absence of quotas is one of the problems with affirmative action.<\/p>\nThird<\/strong>, while it is certainly a lot easier to enforce affirmative action in the public sector, the fact that the private sector can’t be forced to truly institute it because it “has no rules,” as Colby writes, isn’t a reason to throw affirmative action out. It’s a reason to impose rules on the private sector.<\/p>\nFourth<\/strong>, the uproar over the “stigma” of affirmative action makes a mountain out of a molehill. Affirmative action only insists that certain measures are undertaken to ensure that the pool of applicants for public contracts and employment reflects the racial diversity of those who are qualified to do the work. Only at the point when equally qualified people are competing for a job does race become a factor. Anyway, I’d rather be employed in a job my colleagues think I got because of a racial preference than be unemployed, maybe because of a racial preference.<\/p>\nInstead of worrying about the stigma of affirmative action, I suggest we concentrate instead on ending the stigma imposed by racism. After all, isn’t that why folks are whispering about a colleague of color being unqualified but in their job nonetheless because of affirmative action?<\/p>\n
Fifth<\/strong>, affirmative action isn’t a trigger of racially reactionary politics. Racism<\/em> is a trigger of racially reactionary politics. There’s a difference.<\/p>\nBut my biggest concern is Colby’s “solution” which, unlike his specious claims about affirmative action actually stand to gain some traction.\u00a0 In the article, he suggests the following:<\/p>\n
Right now, the Democratic party and the racial justice movement are sitting on a junk heap<\/em> [emphasis mine] of racial preference programs that aren\u2019t doing anyone much good, and they lack the substantive programs they need: a true, New Deal\u2013style reformation that repairs the infrastructure of our cities, ends mass incarceration, provides access to early education and paid family leave and job training and other programs that put all<\/em> of black America on more solid footing. Since Republicans seem to want affirmative action gone so badly, if it were me, I\u2019d be out horse trading. Just as the Obama administration is letting Washington and Colorado opt out of federal marijuana prohibition, let state and local governments opt out of affirmative action mandates, but only in exchange for opting in<\/em> on universal pre-K and other things that working families actually need.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nI wish Colby would be more explicit about this so-called “junk heap” of racial preference programs that racial justice advocates are supposed to be sitting on because I’d like to use a few. If he means the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, or any of the programs created under these acts, he’s obviously confused. They exist to end racial preferences, not to codify them.<\/p>\n
But on the subject of his proposal that we trade away affirmative action for universal public investment, Colby is really barking up the wrong tree. I’m in agreement that a new New Deal that doesn’t exclude blacks in the way the last one did would be a good thing, but unless this 21st century New Deal explicitly addresses racial inequity, it won’t achieve anything like racial justice.<\/p>\n
The experience of the University of California is instructive. Here’s what they had to say in the amicus brief submitted in support of the University of Texas in the Fisher case that went before SCOTUS last year.<\/p>\n
In November 1996\u2026California voters enacted Article I, Section 31 of the state Constitution, widely known as Proposition 209, which provides that \u201c[t]he 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.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nProposition 209, which took effect for undergraduate admissions in 1998, had an immediate and dramatic adverse effect on the admission and enrollment of underrepresented minority students at the University of California. In the ensuing years, the University of California has adopted a number of different strategies in an attempt to reverse that decline in underrepresented minority students, including expanding its outreach program to secondary schools, incorporating a broader and more comprehensive set of admissions criteria, adopting \u201cholistic\u201d review of applicants, decreasing the weight given to standardized tests, and admitting a specified percentage of the top graduates from each high school under an \u201cEligibility in the Local Context\u201d program similar in certain respects to UT\u2019s \u201cTop Ten Percent\u201d Program. To date, however, those measures have enjoyed only limited success. They have not enabled the University of California fully to reverse the precipitous decline in minority admission and enrollment that followed the enactment of Proposition 209, nor to keep pace with the growing population of underrepresented minorities in the applicant pool of qualified high school graduates.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
What California learned when affirmative action in that state was banned is that attempts to achieve racial equity that don’t explicitly name race and give preference to people of color don’t work. In a racially inequitable society, color blind solutions end up reflecting that inequitable context and often even contributes to its perpetuation.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So, okay, affirmative action is far from a perfect solution. And, yes, we need to formulate alternatives and not just continue defending something that doesn’t get to the roots of racial inequity. But, to suggest that we engage in horse trading over affirmative action is just wrong. It’s not the supposedly negative effect of affirmative action, neither on people of color nor on white people, that has made it such a hot button issue. What’s got the temperature up around affirmative action is the phantom of reverse racism. And conceding to that is, well, just racist.And because of the ubiquity of racism, giving up on affirmative action in order to win universal solutions that don’t specifically address race will neither assuage the racially charged fears of white Americans, nor will it achieve racial equity.Anyway, call me an entitlement junkie if you like, but I don’t see why we can’t have both. The benefit of broad public investment on communities of color will be magnified by affirmative action, and should therefore not be won at it’s expense.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Slate today, author and journalist, Tanner Colby, wrote the second in a series of articles concerning what he calls The Massive Liberal Failure on Race. In it, he expounds on the failure of affirmative action to correct the problem of structural racism in the U.S., especially as it affects black people. Because of these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[48,800,375,472,1113,1114,1116,1115],"coauthors":[1367],"class_list":["post-7677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-affirmative-action","tag-california-proposition-209","tag-fisher-v-university-of-texas","tag-racial-equity","tag-racial-preferences","tag-racial-quotas","tag-regents-of-the-university-of-california-v-bakke","tag-tanner-colby"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7677"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10520,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7677\/revisions\/10520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7677"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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