https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/nas_board_member_gail_heriot_debated_affirmative_action_on_npr
You would think that in this year of racial turmoil, the one thing that decent people could all agree on is that racial discrimination is odious and un-American.
But not in ever crazier California. In 1996, a proposition was passed by the voters (with 56 percent of the vote, if I remember correctly), and, thus, enshrined in the state constitution. It said, simply, “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, pubic education, and public contracting.”
Isn’t this what this country is supposed to be about?
Now, the state legislature, utterly dominated by Democrats, wants to drop that language so that the state of California can once again discriminate on the basis of race. They call it “affirmative action” but what it is is flat out racial discrimination. If you discriminate in favor of one race, you must, inescapably, discriminate against all other races.
And it is utterly unnecessary in 2020. Any black person who can handle a particular job or the curriculum of a particular school will be welcomed with open arms.
Even worse, it doesn’t help the favored race. It hurts them. You are doing no one a favor by granting admission to a college for which he or she is not prepared. They do not flourish, they tend to drop out or gravitate to fuzzier and often garbage majors, such as “gender studies,” instead of engineering, science, and medicine.
And this cascades down the line. If a tier one university, is unable to find enough tier one black students, they admit students who would have flourished at a tier two university, forcing the tier two schools to give admission to tier three students and so on.
As Gail Heriot, a professor of law at UC San Diego and a member of the US Civil Rights Commission, makes clear, this hurts the students and, of course, poisons the body politic. She points out that California has a 24-year track record of non-discriminating admissions policies at the University of California system, and it is entirely positive for black and Hispanic students.
It is interesting that the pro-repeal faction has far more money to spend than those opposed, ten to one apparently. And over 90 percent of the pro-repeal money came from donations of over $100,000, while 70 percent of the anti-repeal money has come from donations of under $1000.
In other words, this is once again the elite against the people. They want to virtue signal and don’t care how many of the peasants will pay the price for it.
As Chief Justice John Roberts said, “The way to end discrimination on the basis of race in this country is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”