The Hypocrisy of Black/Hispanic/Women’s/Etc. Caucuses

In the name of “diversity” civil rights groups urge universities, employers, etc., to take race/ethnicity/gender/etc. into account in their admissions and hiring policies. Women’s groups routinely call for more women judges, or doctors, or professors. Hispanic groups demand more Hispanic judges (see here, for example), or doctors, or professors. And so on.

And yet these groups routinely do not practice what they preach, and occasionally demand.

The latest example is the failure of the Congressional Black Caucus to support Rep. Harold Ford ‘s bid for minority leader. That group’s chair, Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.) has endorsed Nancy Pelosi. “The House’s senior black member, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), said it was time for a woman to be in the Democratic leadership and he chastised Ford for supporting the resolution giving President Bush authority to go to war against Iraq.”

Similarly, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund (the group calling for more Hispanic judges linked above) all opposed the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which I discussed at some length here. PRLDF announced that it did not want a “Hispanic Clarence Thomas.”

Women’s groups regularly oppose women whose politics or legal philosophy they don’t like. In voting against the nomination of Priscilla Owen to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Cal.) recently said, “This is a difficult vote for me. I have never voted against a woman before.” Difficult, but she did it.

I have no problem with these groups opposing or supporting whomever they want. Indeed, I respect their taking positions on the “merits” rather than reflex kowtowing to race, ethnicity, gender. My problem is that they object when anyone else wants to do that.