Quotas Exceeded

My own, that is. Of course, I don’t believe in quotas, so I don’t have any, but it may be that I need a quota … on talking about quotas, since I now have to once again.

The NAACP has accused the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities of failing to enforce hiring discrimination law.

The CHRO says this charge is “baseless,” but what is much more interesting, to me, than the truth or falsity of the charge is the nature of the law that the CHRO is supposed to enforce.

State agencies are required to award 25 percent of their contracts to small businesses. Twenty-five percent of that group must also be awarded to businesses owned by women and minorities. According to agency figures, just 23 of 48 of the agencies it oversees are in compliance.

Liberals always say they are opposed to quotas. Would someone please send me copies of any objections they’ve raised to this Connecticut law, or ones like it in other states?

Say What? (37)

  1. actus December 12, 2004 at 5:31 pm | | Reply

    The argument here would probably go along the lines that quotas in personal situations are reprehensible because they foreswear an individualized determination of what is probably a difficult to measure and multidimensional concept of merit or competence.

    Meanwhile in contracting the choice is pretty uni-dimensiona — the best bid, so the quota isn’t as invidious, because its not pre-judging complicated personal or character traits.

  2. Sandy P December 12, 2004 at 5:37 pm | | Reply

    How many black-owned small businesses are in CT?

    Or in New England?

  3. Richard Nieporent December 12, 2004 at 7:19 pm | | Reply

    Actus, nice try. That was a pretty good verbal juggling act. I will give you a 9.5.

    Of course, when states set up these type of rules many of the “minority owned” companies are minority owned in name only. A black or a woman is recruited to play the role of owner so that the company can bid on the contract.

  4. actus December 12, 2004 at 8:10 pm | | Reply

    ‘ A black or a woman is recruited to play the role of owner so that the company can bid on the contract.’

    Do they not own it then?

  5. John Rosenberg December 12, 2004 at 8:59 pm | | Reply

    Racial quotas involving people are bad, but racial quotas based on owners of companies are not bad? That’s interesting. Maybe someone should check to see if, say, Massachusetts is giving too many contracts to Catholics and not enough to Episcopalians. Or vice versa…. Same for Maryland, Missouri, et. al. If discrimination based on race is now O.K., as the quotators believe, there’s no reason to hold the line on discrimination based on religion. Some might think the First Amendment would prevent that, but then some silly folks also thought the 14th prevented racial discrimination.

    Oh, and no: a fig leaf owner, i.e., an owner listed only for quota purposes, is not a real owner because he/she exercises no control. Many cases finding fraud confirm this.

  6. actus December 12, 2004 at 9:03 pm | | Reply

    ‘If discrimination based on race is now O.K., as the quotators believe, there’s no reason to hold the line on discrimination based on religion’

    Or small businesses, or local business, or use of sweatshop labor, or whether they deal with cuba, etc . . .

  7. Richard Nieporent December 12, 2004 at 10:54 pm | | Reply

    actus, on paper they do. However, is it is a sham minority company. Of course that individual benefits, but somehow I don’t think that was the intent of the law. Also, since Asians are also classified as minorities, many immigrants benefit from these laws even though they were never discriminated against. A former student of mine from Nepal wanted to hire me to consult for his minority owned business. For some reason, I can’t seem to remember all of the Nepalese discrimination that took place in the US that we are rectifying with this law.

  8. actus December 12, 2004 at 11:02 pm | | Reply

    ‘actus, on paper they do. However, is it is a sham minority company. Of course that individual benefits, but somehow I don’t think that was the intent of the law.’

    I would think that someone either owns something or they don’t, and that sort of thing would be pretty well defined in a capitalist economy based on property rights.

    Perhaps the law that is helping your frieend isn’t just geared to past discrimination.

  9. Laura December 13, 2004 at 8:15 am | | Reply

    “Meanwhile in contracting the choice is pretty uni-dimensiona — the best bid, so the quota isn’t as invidious, because its not pre-judging complicated personal or character traits.”

    Actus, what if the top ten bids for specific agencies are always nonminority? That’s never going to happen in my neck of the woods (although somehow we have minority (really majority) setasides anyway) but I can see it in Connecticutt. Should they make a point of going to bid 11 to meet that quota? Is that responsive to the taxpayers, some of whom presumably are black? How far do you think the government ought to go in enforcing that quota?

  10. actus December 13, 2004 at 10:17 am | | Reply

    ‘Should they make a point of going to bid 11 to meet that quota? Is that responsive to the taxpayers, some of whom presumably are black? How far do you think the government ought to go in enforcing that quota?’

    I would assume the details would be left to the representatives. They could put a cap on the distance of the preferred group from the top bidder. Or simply offer a couple of percentage points bonus. Decide that its worth that amount to promote minority or women owned business. Just like someone could decide its worth extra to support local, or union, or non-sweatshop business.

    How much extra? I don’t know. Its up to the community really. I am less suspect of benefits that the majority creates against itself than when the majority creates them for itself.

  11. superdestroyer December 13, 2004 at 10:42 am | | Reply

    Actus,

    The Baltimore Sun reported that the City of Baltimore Schools are paying millions more for minor construction items like lights, etc because of a minority (really a majority set aside program). It rings kind of hollow when then politicians claims they do not have enough money for good schools when a black majority city is willing to pay above market prices to “black owned” business. I doubt the voters really want to see their tax dollars wasted in such a way or really want a trade off of worse schools (for minority children) versus a windfall for minoritiy businessmen.

  12. John Rosenberg December 13, 2004 at 12:09 pm | | Reply

    Me:

    discrimination based on race is now O.K., as the quotators believe, there’s no reason to hold the line on discrimination based on religion…

    actus:

    Or small businesses, or local business, or use of sweatshop labor, or whether they deal with cuba, etc . . .

    Me again:

    Huh?

  13. Sandy P December 13, 2004 at 12:48 pm | | Reply

    ‘ A black or a woman is recruited to play the role of owner so that the company can bid on the contract.’

    Do they not own it then?

    You’re not from Chicago, are you, actus?

    Done all the time.

  14. Claire December 13, 2004 at 2:08 pm | | Reply

    It’s interesting that the most reported instances of these kinds of ‘fake’ minority owner frauds occur in Chicago, New York, L.A., SF, Miami – in other words, strongly Democratic areas that claim to be the bastions of liberalism and tolerance.

    To me, minority set-asides all smack more of a very elaborate scam that is being perpetuated on the rest of us by those who only want a piece of the pie whether they are qualified for it or not.

    And why is it that black minority businesses are somehow considered more ‘worthy’ than other minority-owned businesses? But any criticism of this blatant power-grab brings immediate piercing crys of “Racism!” against those who protest, even when those protesters are members of minorities themselves.

    The problems of individual acts of personal discrimination by white individuals against blacks pale in comparison to the institutionalized anti-white racism that has become the heart and soul of the American black ‘identity’. But unlike the days of black slavery, when a great many whites spoke out against it as a great evil, now those who cry out against a similar injustice are themselves reviled. The apparent belief of many in the black community seems to be that two wrongs do indeed make a right, and therefore past injustice actually justifies committing the same crime against others. On that basis, I oppose so-called affirmative action, that actually institutionalizes this immoral tit-for-tat, and I believe that many years from now, our descendants will shake their heads in disbelief at the the greedy, immoral, and unChristian behavior of those who want – no, rather, DEMAND – favoritism because of injustices they never personally suffered.

  15. Michelle Dulak Thomson December 13, 2004 at 4:45 pm | | Reply

    I seem to recall, somewhere in one of Thomas Sowell’s books, a discussion of something called “Ali-Baba enterprises” in Malaysia — companies set up to take advantage of Gov’t set-asides for native Malaysian-owned businesses. “Ali” was the nominal (native Malaysian) owner; “Baba” was the contractor (generally ethnic Chinese) who actually arranged the work.

    This sort of thing is common enough all over the world, wherever it provides advantages capable of exploitation. It is, obviously, generally illegal; but, equally obviously, hard to prove as long as neither partner rats on the other — which, since each holds evidence of the other’s criminality, doesn’t happen often, I imagine. More likely would be one trying to cheat the other, an exploit that tends to end in dead people. I’d hazard that a lot of partnerships along these lines would be honored by the partners purely for mutual safety’s sake (and, obviously, mutual gain). Though somehow it’s hard to connect all this with Connecticut. (Sorry, couldn’t help myself.)

  16. linsee December 13, 2004 at 4:53 pm | | Reply

    for actus’ benefit, an excerpt from a column I wrote in 1995:

    Maybe it was the warm glow of the campfire, or the free-flowing wine, but it was on a weekend camping trip that I found out how California’s minority contracting program really works.

    “Larry” is a broker specializing in supplies for commercial cooking and cleaning — paper cups for school districts, toilet paper for prisons, that sort of thing. He used to sell directly to

    the state of California, but no longer.

    First, he’s not willing to tell the state how much he is paying for the stuff he sells, a requirement instituted as a “cost-saving” measure. Finding warehouses full of good stuff cheap is his special talent, and he doesn’t want his competitors knowing just how cheap.

    Second, he kept running into minority preferences, where he could lose a contract even though he was the lowest bidder.

    So now, he does all his business with the state indirectly.

    He could sell toilet paper for $32 a case, Larry said, but he’d have to tell the state what it cost him. So instead, he sells it to a “minority business enterprise” for $35. The MBE, which pretty much consists of one black guy with a telephone and a computer, fills out all the paperwork and charges the state $37 a case.

    Everybody is happy, right? — especially the legislators who make it all possible and go home at night brimming with self-satisfaction over their contribution to social justice.

    whole thing here:

    http://herd.plethora.net/~linsee/columns/

    columns1995/19950407

  17. actus December 13, 2004 at 5:46 pm | | Reply

    Sounds like a good way to solve things is to require some more depth of ownership in thes MBE’s.

  18. Laura December 13, 2004 at 10:24 pm | | Reply

    Supporting local, union, or nonsweatshop companies is about benefitting the employees of those companies, not the owners. Around here, all businesses employ black people, whoever they’re owned by. We’ve seen minority set-asides cause our city council to award contracts to companies outside the city, county, and even state, because some black person was listed as the owner, thus passing up companies right here in town that employ black people and pay city taxes. How does it help black people in general for one business owner to get a break?

  19. actus December 14, 2004 at 10:13 am | | Reply

    I think it helps african american communities to have business owners and capital in them as much as it helps other communities to have business owners and capital in them.

  20. Cobra December 14, 2004 at 12:31 pm | | Reply

    Actus,

    Now why did you have to go THERE about African American owned businesses? The posters here thought all those “black business” demons were exorcised back in September:

    http://www.discriminations.us/storage/2004_09.html

    But you do see a pattern forming, huh? If they’re against hiring preference programs for minorities in white owned businesses, and against the general principle of minority owned busineses…

    Curious….

    –Cobra

  21. Laura December 14, 2004 at 1:46 pm | | Reply

    “against the general principle of minority owned busineses”?????

    Cobra, you’re hallucinating.

  22. ThePrecinctChair December 14, 2004 at 2:26 pm | | Reply

    Hold it — I thought that such strict numerical quotas were illegal.

  23. Cobra December 14, 2004 at 3:04 pm | | Reply

    Laura,

    Re-read that “African Town” thread from September’s archives and you tell me what impression you get.

    –Cobra

  24. David Nieporent December 14, 2004 at 4:47 pm | | Reply

    I think it helps african american communities to have business owners and capital in them as much as it helps other communities to have business owners and capital in them.

    Last I checked, these rules require that the owners be black, not that they live in black communities.

    But that is an interesting endorsement of trickle down economics; I wonder when you’ll be endorsing it in the GOP presidential platform.

  25. actus December 14, 2004 at 5:50 pm | | Reply

    ‘Last I checked, these rules require that the owners be black, not that they live in black communities.’

    Communities aren’t just geographical.

    ‘But that is an interesting endorsement of trickle down economics; I wonder when you’ll be endorsing it in the GOP presidential platform.’

    I said it helps it as much as others communities, not how much it helps. Of course I’d much rather preferences be given on economic need. Hows that for an endorsement of trickle down?

  26. Michelle Dulak Thomson December 14, 2004 at 6:02 pm | | Reply

    actus,

    Communities aren’t just geographical.

    No, indeed. But the difference between “the black community” and “the community of [insert favorite smallish town here] is that you can leave the latter. From the former you can only be expelled; if you haven’t been, it’s assumed you live there. If you’re black, obviously.

  27. Brian December 14, 2004 at 6:05 pm | | Reply

    “I’d much rather preferences be given on economic need.”

    LOL. Good one. By all means, let’s award contracts to those companies that are on the verge of insolvency (i.e. economic need) even if their problems are due to poor management, poor products, poor distribution, poor internal controls etc.

    Not only will we overpay for services/products, we’ll get inferior quality. A two-fer!

  28. Laura December 14, 2004 at 6:22 pm | | Reply

    Cobra, the impression I get is that you deliberately misunderstand what we white posters write so that you can continue your venomous attacks on our motives and general worthiness as human beings. Vish even spelled it out for you early in that thread but you refuse to believe that we are anything but hateful racists.

    “Cobra, w.r.t your question:

    Or are the posters in this blog AGAINST minority entreprenuership?

    If you believe that is true, why are you here? If you don’t believe that, why say something so outrageous except to provoke a heated reaction?

    Again and agian, posters here have made the same point:

    It is not a problem if African-americans create these organizations to help themselves. In fact, there already exist such organizations. But, government (federal, state or local) must not be doing these things. For governments to give preferences to specific communities, racial or religious, is to start upon a very dangerous path, one which eventually ends with totalitarianism.

    Posted by Vish October 3, 2004 03:33 PM”

    Which you translate into “I hate minority businesses, blah blah blah.” Whatever.

  29. actus December 14, 2004 at 6:36 pm | | Reply

    ‘By all means, let’s award contracts to those companies that are on the verge of insolvency (i.e. economic need) ‘

    We don’t have to define the economic need to just refer to the need of the owners though. We could think about how some companies are more needy because they pay their workers a living wage, or because their employment base is in a depressed area.

  30. Michelle Dulak Thomson December 14, 2004 at 7:07 pm | | Reply

    actus,

    We don’t have to define the economic need to just refer to the need of the owners though. We could think about how some companies are more needy because they pay their workers a living wage, or because their employment base is in a depressed area.

    Well, fine, do that. Give an edge to companies that pay a “living wage.” (Many cities already do this in their contracting.) I don’t think you will need to give any sort of bump to contractors whose “base is in a depressed area,” because the “base” is generally where the project is.

    But what the race of the company owner has to do with this is anyone’s guess. So far as I can tell, a Korean with a mostly-black workforce loses out to a black with a mostly-Mexican workforce despite having the lower bid. I don’t think anyone on any side believes this is sensible or fair.

  31. Michelle Dulak Thomson December 14, 2004 at 7:11 pm | | Reply

    I ought to have made clear that my Korean-headed, black-staffed company and my black-headed, Mexican-staffed company were both hypotheticals. I havent’ actually come across companies anywhere fitting either description. My point was only that black ownership is not automatically black workforce; nor should we assume that it would be.

  32. actus December 14, 2004 at 7:50 pm | | Reply

    ‘But what the race of the company owner has to do with this is anyone’s guess. ‘

    Right, thats different than economic need, and i’m guessing even different than directly benefitting employers. Its about making sure that certain race communities have capitalists and capital in them. Some people think that capitalists and capital are a good thing.

  33. actus December 14, 2004 at 7:51 pm | | Reply

    Oops. That should have read ‘different than directly benefitting employees’.

  34. Anonymous December 15, 2004 at 2:31 am | | Reply

    Cobra,

    Your exercise foolishnes does not benefit your cause. Before I make anynore comments about employment discrimination.I’d like to go back to your statement about the UM – Ann Arbor case where you claimed there were 1440 non – whites who got higher SAT scores than Grazt who were denied admission to the freshman class, do you really understand what you are talking about?. An Academic Performance Index usually means in an academic setting that it is a rundown of factors with their corresonding value points which will or will not cause admittance for the student to the school. Let us say that the maximum amount of points you can possibly accumulate is 150 in an Admissions Performance Index. Then the perfect score of 150 can be attained if all the points you attained from every individual factor has a sum equal to 150. In every Admissions Performance Index, there is a cutoff score which determines as to whether a student is accepted or not. Suppose the cutoff score is 100 points. Let us say

    Gratz scored a total of 60 points and a non – white student got 80 points. You can see very well that both students are ineligible for admissions because they both scored below the cutoff score. I do not know about the particular situation of Gratz. Maybe she got 20 points for being a white student in an inner , another 20 points for taking the most advanced classes in her high school, another 20 points for being a star high school athlete. In other words, the applicants total admission performance index score is the total of the corresponding point values for the admissions factors which he or she is eligible for. Some of the non -white applicants may or may have not gotten a higher SAT score than Gratz, it depends on the individual. But one thing is clear, they all got including Gratz an admissions performance index score lower than the required cutoff score for admissions. The real issue here is this,which of the admissions factors deserve inclusion in the Admission Performance Index ? Should it be a race preference? Should it be because you are a white kid who graduated from a predominantly non – white inner city school? Should it be a preference based on the fact that the applicant is from the Upper Peninsula in MIchigan? As far as I am concerned, the only preference that matters is something that is based on poverty. The claim that you made that 1440 other non-whites denied admission did not sue because they were denied admission , is not a legal bar for Ms. Gratz to sue UM – Ann Arbor. They did not sue because, they knew that their Admissions Performance Index Score was lower than the the cutoff score, just like Miss Gratz

  35. leo cruz December 15, 2004 at 2:34 am | | Reply

    the poster for the 12/15/04 post at 2:31 AM was Leo Cruz and I am not trying to disguise my real name.

  36. Cobra December 15, 2004 at 8:56 am | | Reply

    Leo cruz writes:

    >>>They did not sue because, they knew that their Admissions Performance Index Score was lower than the the cutoff score, just like Miss Gratz”

    And:

    >>>I do not know about the particular situation of Gratz.”

    If you haven’t interviewed the 2000 underrepresented minorities with higher scores or grades who weren’t accepted, or know the situation Gratz was in, (suburban, blue collar, 92% white town) then how can you accuse ME of performing “an exercise of foolishness?”

    I have the facts behind me.

    Where are yours?

    –Cobra

  37. Michelle Dulak Thomson December 15, 2004 at 3:05 pm | | Reply

    actus,

    [me:] ‘But what the race of the company owner has to do with this is anyone’s guess.’

    [actus:] Right, thats different than economic need, and i’m guessing even different than directly benefitting employees. Its about making sure that certain race communities have capitalists and capital in them. Some people think that capitalists and capital are a good thing.

    Ah, well, speak for yourself. I happen to think capital is a good thing — so much so that I wish a lot of people had more of it. I can’t say I particularly think capitalists are a good thing, though; and in my experience the ordinary behavior of a “capitalist” of any race is to take his money and go sit on it in some riff-raff-inaccessible place, doling out tidbits occasionally to get his face in the papers as a public benefactor. That’s all the more true when he is posing as an exemplar of his “race.”

Say What?