Worth v. Martinez – InstaPundit links to an excellent article by Stuart Taylor in National Journal about Worth v. Martinez, an important new attack on affirmative action in the federal government filed by the indomitable Center for Individual Rights. Go read the Taylor article.
This case is of potentially vital importance for two reasons: it threatens to put the final nail into the coffin of racial/gender preferences in government hiring, and perhaps of affirmative action in general; and it may make it impossible for the Bush administration to continue avoiding affirmative action, since it now has the obligation to defend the indefensible practices outlined in the complaint and surrounding materials.
Now if I may be so bold as to engage in some shameless ownblog-promotion, let me point out that a few of you already read about that case here, where I wrote that
CIR’s lawsuit, Worth v. Martinez, threatens to do to the employment practices of the federal government, the nation’s largest employer, what its suits against the University of Michigan’s preferential admissions policies may do to college admissions (depending on what, if anything, the Supremes do with the latter).
Well, not totally shameless; I feel guilty enough about blowing our own horn to point out that my post really didn’t do much more than point readers to Stanley Kurtz’s impressively thorough discussion of CIR’s argument in Worth v. Martinez here and to CIR’s powerful discussion of the issues in the case here. I did not link it directly before, but CIR’s statistical table demonstrating how dramatically white males are “underrepresented” in the federal work force is also worth checking.
Returning now to the shameless self-promotion, I do think one thing I pointed out in my earlier post bears repeating here (lesson: the more you blog, the more opportunities you can find, or create, to quote yourself!):
Despite the protests of many defenders of preferences that they do not believe in quotas or proportional representation, CIR’s evidence demonstrates that the EEOC and those administering employment at HUD believe that “underrepresentation” of any group except white males is not evidence of discrimination; it is discrimination. (In a crucial distinction, the CIR makes clear that its complaint is not with the vast and pervasive “underrepresentation” of white males in the federal workforce but with the discriminatory policies and practices responsible for it.)
Donning once again the garb of good blogcitizen, I will close by pointing out that two other excellent articles from last month on Worth v. Martinez can be found here, by the indispensable Roger Clegg, and here, by Terry Eastland, publisher of The Weekly Standard.
Keep your eyes on this case.
