About ten days ago I criticized (here) the efforts of Washington governor Gary Locke (D, of course) to undo the results of Initiative I-200, a ban on racial preference similar to California’s Proposition 209 that was approved by 58% of Washington voters in 1998.
Today Dave Huber of Hube’s Cube discusses an interesting Seattle Times article on the growing controversy.
I think we can see a pattern here. In California, opponents of Prop. 209 rushed into court after its easy passage in an unsuccessful attempt to block its implementation. In Michigan (as discussed here) opponents of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative are planning to spend millions of dollars to keep that preference-banning proposal off the ballot. And now in Washington opponents of I-200 are attempting to reverse it in the legislature. And these efforts are led by liberals who routinely assert that Republican judicial nominees are “out of the mainstream.”
Because popular opinion convincingly opposes preferences, the efforts to retain them invariably must rely on distortion and disingenuousness (I’m too polite to say mendacity). Defenders of racial preferences, for example, usually object to the descriptively accurate term “racial preferences,” preferring the vague and ambiguous “affirmative action.”
Similarly, in my recent post on Locke-step liberalism I quoted Gov. Locke’s spokeswoman, Kirsten Kendrick, who claimed that Locke’s intent is “bringing our admissions processes in line with the U.S. Supreme Court decisions.” This is obviously the official line, since the Seattle Times article linked above quotes the same assertion, but from a different spokesperson:
Debora Merle, Locke’s higher-education policy adviser, said the proposed changes would bring state law into compliance with the Supreme Court ruling. Creating campus diversity would be “a marvelous side benefit,” she said
Oh, I see. Retaining preference-based “diversity” is not the purpose of the new proposal, merely a “side benefit.” Conscientious state officials are merely trying to bring the state into “compliance” with what the Supreme Court has mandated.
This, of course, is a load of bull. The Supremes did not require racial preferences or even “diversity.” They merely (merely!) allowed preferences in certain constrained circumstances. Indeed, the ST article followed Merle’s misrepresentation with the following paragraphs:
But [Russ] Brooks, an attorney with the Pacific Northwest office of the Pacific Legal Foundation, said voters made it clear in 1998 that they did not want any admissions decisions made through the prism of race or ethnicity.
“It’s abhorrent and offensive that the state Legislature would undertake any kind of effort to thwart the will of the people,” he said.
Tim Eyman, one of the original co-sponsors of I-200, agreed: “What is it about 58 percent of the voters who approved the initiative that isn’t clear?”
The Supreme Court ruled only that race can be considered in admissions, not that it must be, he said.
Moving beyond the mendacity disingenuousness, however, the article contained some highly relevant, little appreciated information about the actual effect of I-200. To the surprise of many, the sky didn’t fall after all.
Initiative 200 was promoted as a civil-rights measure that would create a “colorblind” society. Opponents, who included a wide swath of elected, business and education officials, predicted it would be detrimental to the public workplace and college campuses.
Undergraduate enrollment of racial minorities, however, did not drop dramatically, and at some schools, minority enrollment rebounded to pre-I-200 levels.
The number of black and Latino students in last year’s freshman class at the University of Washington, for example, has surpassed 1998 levels for both groups. Over the past six years, the proportion of black and Latino freshmen had dipped, but last year the percentages were similar to 1998’s.
Racial minorities in 2003, excluding Asian Americans, represented 8.9 percent — or 447 students — of the freshman class.
The number of black freshmen at Washington State University dropped by 20 students from 2002 to 2003. But WSU’s freshman class now generally mirrors what the first-year class looked like before 1998. Racial minorities in 2003 represented 13.7 percent — or 415 students — of the freshman class.
Thus, in addition to being offensive to the fundamental principle that individuals should not be rewarded or penalized because of their race, it turns out that racial preferences aren’t even necessary to produce diversity.
You assume that Washington State University is compying with I-200.
It is also possible that WSU admissions officials are “looking at the whole applicant” and admitting members of “racial minorities … excluding Asian Americans” who wouldn’t be admitted if they were white or Asian.
This hypothesis could be easily tested by seeing if “racial minorities … excluding Asian Americans” have lower grades or a lower graduation rate than whites and Asians.
Good luck prying that data from the University.
I suspect Washington State universities are subject to a FOIA or open records law. Its a worthy effort.
But Roger, you make a good point. However, are you saying that I should measure a proposal, like Michigan’s, based upon the potential of illegal action. Every law can be violated.
California, Texas, and Washington all showed an initial dip, followed by a rebound in diversity. All three states and multiple universities responded with different diversity alternatives. And none of these three had the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision to guide them, so “holistic racial preferences” weren’t being measured by these numbers (indeed, those are still illegal under Washington and California law). This is the strongest argument that viable alternatives exist, in a plethora of flavors. Sure, is there some “cheating” at the margin by individual admissions officers? Yes. But is the whole rebound accountable for in that way? Probably, most likely, not.