I have noted here too many times to cite the absurdity of BAMN and other opponents of colorblind equal treatment complaining that advocates of the Michigan Civil Rights initiative are fraudulently misleading when they claim (accurately) that MCRI — which would ban preferences based on race — is intended to protect civil rights.
But they’re still at it, promising to take their silly argument to the Michigan Supreme Court.
Michigan Civil Rights Initiative leader Jennifer Gratz says the ballot campaign set the standard for petition drives in its thoroughness and compliance with Michigan law. Her group objects to the suggestion that it used a gray area of the law to its advantage, saying critics have raised baseless allegations to keep the measure off the ballot.
The group’s proposal, which appears headed for the November 2006 ballot, would ban the use of race and gender preferences in university admissions and government hiring. Gratz’s group submitted more than 500,000 voter signatures for its effort, far more than the 317,757 required by state law to qualify for the ballot.
Critics, including the pro-affirmative action group By Any Means Necessary, say Gratz’s group gathered an undetermined number of those signatures by tricking voters into signing petitions they thought would protect affirmative action.
The state Court of Appeals said a state elections board doesn’t have the authority to investigate BAMN’s claims. Officials with the secretary of state’s office recommended that the petitions be certified as valid, and the court ordered the issue onto the ballot.
BAMN now is appealing to the Michigan Supreme Court in hopes of sparking a broader investigation. Even if its efforts are successful, critics would have to prove that about 37 percent of the ballot signatures are invalid to keep the measure off the ballot.
As I’ve argued here before, it is BAMN and its Democratic (and some Republican) allies who are confused about the meaning of civil rights, not the 500,000 signers of MCRI’s petition.
Now, note how this disagreement about the meaning of civil rights is portrayed by Associated Press writer Tim Martin in the article linked above:
BAMN and other opponents say some circulators told some voters that the measure would support affirmative action or civil rights, something they argue it doesn’t do.
MCRI supporters say the measure would indeed protect civil rights – but they mean the civil rights of people such as Gratz, a white female who contends she was passed over for admission to the University of Michigan in favor of a less qualified minority student. Gratz ended up attending classes at the university’s Dearborn campus. [Emphasis added]
“… [B]ut they mean…” indeed! MCRI would prevent state agencies from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to
any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting. [Emphasis added]
What part of “any individual” does Martin (or his editor, if he has one) not understand? Where does it say that this freedom from racial discrimination is limited to “people such as Gratz, a white female…”? Since the text of MCRI says nothing about limiting its protection to “people such as Gratz” (indeed, it says the opposite: that it protects “any individual or group”), how does Martin know what proponents of MCRI “mean”? He certainly presents no evidence in the article that anyone who supports MCRI means anything like what he asserts.
Martin’s mindless mind-reading of what unnamed individuals “mean” gives this article all the authority of a carnival palm reader.
John, I think you’ve misread the article, even though I agree with you about the unfairness of that one quote.
I thought the article in its entirety was a fabulously favorable article for MCRI, and I suspect that one quote was either inserted by the editor or poorly chosen. I have interacted with the writer, and although I don’t know if he has a position on the issue, he is among the group of writers I’d consider reasonable.
I blogged it here:
http://chetlyzarko.com/b2evolution/index.php?title=ap_in_depth_analysis_of_the_technical_ar&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1#comments
and took the opposite (from you) approach of pointing out all of the positive things the article says in deconstructing the myths BAMN has portrayed. Additionally, the writer does the great service of putting the Governor more on the record, and her statements are simply laughable.
Sorry about how that link stretches into your sidebar. I won’t do it that way again.
My point is that even with the obvious bias of the media where quotes like the one you point out slip in (which MCRI simply will have to face), the vast majority of this article made conclusions that a neutral reader would be hard pressed to conclude that BAMN was right, and the Governor’s quotes were presented with the ideal counter-quote from the Attorney General.
Chetly – Good points. I did focus on the half of the glass that was empty, but that one quote was so outrageous it pulled the rest of the article down, at least for me, and I think the author needed to be called on it.
John, I understand your consternation with that quote, and it obviously was a poor choice of words and inaccurately portrayed MCRI, but I’m more jaded perhaps being on the ground here in Michigan and just don’t see many “half full” glasses on the issue. So when a half-full one comes around, I drink from it.
In this case, I thought the glass was about 80% full.
In fact, if an article ever attains true “half-full” status from both perspectives, then it is probably a “perfect” piece of journalism since it presents both sides (of course, there are more than two, but…) equally well.