Chatterbox (Timothy Noah) on Slate has gotten himself all agitated over President Bush’s new executive order, “Equal Protection of the Laws for Faith-based and Community Organizations,” which he thinks subsidizes discrimination.
Noah presents a nice summary of some executive orders dealing with discrimination, even quoting but failing to notice that the term “affirmative action” in President Lyndon Johnson’s Executive Order 11246, 28 Sept. 1965, actually required colorblindness.
The [federal] contractor will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin. The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin. (emphasis added)
Noah’s summary also acknowledges that Bush’s new executive order simply imposes on religious charities receiving federal funds the same non-discriminatory standard that already applies to religious charities who do not receive federal contracts, i.e., they may discriminate on the basis of “creed,” i.e., Methodist organizations may hire only Methodists for certain positions, but not on the basis of race or sex. Noah claims to have no problem with that.
What bothers him is what he regards as “the subjectivity inherent in defining this or that person as belonging to this or that religion.” How do you know if someone is a Methodist? Can a homosexual be a “good” Methodist?
The determination that someone is a Methodist, Muslim, or Jew is inseparable from the determination that someone is a “good” Methodist, Muslim or Jew. Once you grant that, the ACLU correctly points out that other forms of discrimination can slip in the back door.
These questions are not bad. But the same questions arise in other venues, and I haven’t noticed Noah’s concern about them. Maybe I’ve just missed his concern about “subjectivity inherent in” the University of California’s now giving admission preference points for overcoming adversity, not to mention the problems, for universities that still discriminate on the basis of race and ethnicity, of determining who is black or Hispanic.
