It has often been pointed out — here and here and elsewhere — that “diversity” is often merely a polite term, or fig leaf, for raw ethnic politics or even an ethnic spoils system. A particularly revealing example of this is the response in the official Hispanic community, i.e., the interest groups, to the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit, nicely described in an article by Tony Mauro on law.com. (Link via the all-seeing Howard Bashman)
Many official Hispanics support Estrada because he is Hispanic (he emigrated from Honduras as a teenager), but many others oppose him because he’s conservative. They do not want a “Hispanic Clarence Thomas,” according to a report by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund. (I did not see a report on Estrada on the PRLDF web site, but ironically there is a new report listed there on “Opening the Courthouse Doors: The Need for More Hispanic Judges”!)
As the Tony Mauro article makes clear, what official Hispanics want is not simply “more Hispanic Judges,” but more Hispanic judges of a certain persuasion. When push comes to shove, they prefer the proper persuasion to the prescribed ethnicity — just as liberal women and official blacks oppose women and blacks with politics they don’t approve.
Indeed, whenever a Hispanic or black or woman who does not toe the party line is in line for some appointment, “diversity” quickly flies out the window, replaced by its opposite: the need to enforce ideological conformity within the group. The usual method is to insist that the offender isn’t “really” a black (thus Thomas is an Uncle Tom or an “oreo”), woman (that one’s more of a stretch, but possible because gender is “socially constructed”), or Hispanic. True to form, PRLDEF said Estrada should be rejected “because of his lack of ties to the lives and concerns of fellow Hispanics.”
Countering the White House portrayal, the fund said that Estrada was the son of a lawyer and a bank vice president in Honduras, giving him a considerable leg up when he arrived in America at age 16. “Mr. Estrada has not lived the educationally or economically disadvantaged life his proponents would have others believe,” the PRLDEF report states.
Estrada, according to PRLDEF, has a privileged background and a “clear lack of any connection whatsoever” to the lives and policy concerns of Hispanics, including affirmative action and the rights of criminal defendants.
. . . .
When Estrada achieved success as a lawyer, the report also claims, Estrada left his roots behind. “Once he made it, he both disappeared from and never became connected or committed to the Hispanic community,” PRLDEF asserts. “As a result, we believe that he lacks the sensitivity and perspectives shared by the majority of Hispanic-Americans in our country.”
It will probably come as a surprise to many unofficial Hispanics to learn that at the core of their identity is a devotion to affirmative action and a high solicitude for the rights of criminal defendants. Apparently, no “real” Hondurans are bankers or lawyers. According to the party line of the official Hispanics, if you’re not “educationally or economically disadvantaged” you can’t be a representative of the Hispanic community.
This has nothing to do with “diversity” and everything to do with political conformity.
