Over on Volokh David Bernstein mentioned a student note that appeared in the Harvard Law Review (107 Harv. L.Rev 877 [1994]) arguing that listing racial preferences in personal ads (for dating, and more) should be illegal.
Many thought the argument ridiculous, and Bernstein quotes a passage from his recent book, You Can’t Say That!:
When one honestly applies the logic of the antidiscrimination movement, it is difficult to fault the law review article’s conclusion that personal ads should be forcibly shorn of discriminatory preferences. Modern antidiscrimination ideology suggests that those who refuse to date (and, therefore, to ultimately marry) members of certain groups should be punished. After all, discriminatory dating not only offends those excluded, but, given the difference in median wealth among groups, it is also a leading cause of societal inequality. Taken to their logical ends, antidiscrimination principles suggest that singles in the dating market should be prohibited from preferentially choosing African Americans or whites, the able-bodied or the disabled, Catholics or Protestants, or even same-sex or opposite-sex partners, lest offense and inequality result.
Bernstein mentions a recent case from England where a pub landlady was ordered to remove an ad seeking a “single white male” as “racist,” and he adds that he had thought his point was a reductio ad absurdum but now he doubts “whether everyone agrees that it’s absurd.”
Actually, I think the logic of current arguments is even more absurd, that Bernstein’s point is not reductioed enough.
These days “the logic of the antidiscrimination movement” has abandoned the neutral, colorblind principle that is required in order to regard any behavior based on race — such as taking race into account in admitting students, hiring or promoting workers, or choosing a dating/marriage partner — to be discriminatiory. Actually, acting on the current logic of “diversity” would require not non-discrimination in (formerly?) private arenas such as romantic relationships but the affirmative promotion of interracial relationships. Perhaps the income and property tax rates for interracial couples should be lower than for same-race couples. Similarly, according to that logic, since non-discrimination laws have done no more to move minorities into gated, exclusive communities than they did into Harvard and Yale, old-fashioned anti-discrimination laws dealing with home mortgages and housing in general should be replaced with racial preference policies, such as strict affirmative action requirements on realtors and reduced rates/purchase prices for minorities moving into formerly white neighborhoods.
Is this absurd?
Is this absurd?
Don’t give them any ideas!
Of course it is, but that will not stop them from implementing it. For example, I read an article not too long ago where some people were trying to get a law passed that would mandate that new private homes must have doorways and bathrooms that could accommodate wheelchairs. The rationale for this lamebrain idea was that not doing so would discriminate against your handicapped friends since they would not be able to visit you.
If they passed such a law I was wondering if you could get an exemption by proving that you were a bigot who didn’t have any handicapped friends. Of course you would have to pass (or is it fail?) the Richeson test to get the exemption.
Bonfire of the Absurdities
Word of the day is: reductio creep. The term was originally coined a little over a year ago by Julian Sanchez as “the process by which an insane extension of some principle, offered as a reductio ad absurdum of that…
More likely, a requirement (like the one in the NFL) that you must show every house on the market to a black buyer, and that them not buying it is prima facie evidence of racial discrimination…
Patrick McKenzie
Richard,
That wheelchair access thing is the law in some parts of CA. Not a proposal, but actually in the building code.
The Housing thing already happens in some part of the country. I had a friend who wanted to move to Oak Park, IL after college (A Chicago Suburb). Oak Park is dedicated to perfect integration. My friend wanted an apartment close to public transportation because he did not own a car. However, he was told he could not live in certain buildings because they had already met their “White” quota, and could not rent vacant apartments to non-minorities– even if there were no minorities who wanted the apartments!
Apparently this is not illegal because it is enforced by a volunteer community organization?