Laura Berman, a “journalist” at the Detroit News, demonstrates once again, as if any additional demonstration were necessary, that defenders of racial preferences can’t criticize the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative without distorting it. (I put “journalist” in quotes here because Ms. Berman claims that MCRI, which would bar the state from treating some people favorably and others unfavorably because of their race, is “confusingly titled” as a “civil rights” initiative.)
Distortion No. 1: MCRI would put an end to “state-funded scholarships for young women seeking science careers. Or sports careers.”
No, it wouldn’t. True, the state could no longer (does it do this now?) offer science scholarships that are limited to women, or nursing scholarships that are limited to men. Those scholarships would have to go to the best, or the neediest, applicants, and the applicant pool could not be limited by race or sex. Perhaps in a future “column” Ms. Berman could explain why she thinks tax funds collected from Michigan citizens of all races, genders, ethnicities, should be earmarked for the benefit of only those on her approved list. The same holds true for sports, or does Ms. Berman think, say, womens’ basketball runs afoul of the state’s current equal rights laws (or that it would have been outlawed if the Equal Rights Amendment had passed)?
Distortion No. 2: MCRI “is widely viewed by corporate powers as a threat to the state’s economy.”
It may be true that “corporate powers” view MCRI this way, but it is hard to see why they fear the impact of having to treat their employees without regard to race, ethnicity, or gender … of why, if that fear really exists, it should be honored and indulged by the citizens of Michigan. Does anyone really maintain that if MCRI passes business will flee Michigan for states where they are allowed to bestow racial preferences? Let’s see some evidence.
Distortion No. 3 (or perhaps just a continuation of 2): MCRI “could also pose huge problems for companies headquartered here that operate not only in Michigan, but also throughout the world. They need to hire all kinds of workers — women, blacks, Asians, gay people — and aren’t anxious to see the supply lines to their work force cut.
Oh, come on! “Supply lines cut”? By what? Presumably this means that without the ability to extend racial preferences in admissions (but only admissions? why not grades?), the supply of “diverse” new employees would dwindle. But this has not happened in California, where the minority enrollment in the university system has rebounded to pre-209 levels. Also, I wonder if those “corporate powers” would really be so upset if they could have confidence, which they cannot now, that the “diverse” graduates of Michigan universities they hire had met the same standards as all other graduates. [INTERNAL UPDATE: In any event, see the comment below by Michelle, who points out that of the “women, blacks, Asians, gay people” the “corporate powers” are so worried about not being able to hire, only blacks are the beneficiaries of preferential admissions. Thus MCRI would not affect the “supply lines” of graduates in the other groups at all. This goes beyond distortion to outright misrepresentation.]
Distortion No. 4: “Corporations live in the real world, not the world of ideas. They’re not newspaper columnists: Dumb ideas cost real companies real money. “
On the evidence I’ve seen, especially but not only here, many newspaper columnists live in a world that is neither real nor populated by ideas. At least not good ones.
John,
What an amazing pile of . . . oh, never mind. But this is the best:
They need to hire all kinds of workers — women, blacks, Asians, gay people — and aren’t anxious to see the supply lines to their work force cut.
We have four categories here. Three of them are not affirmative-action categories in any undergraduate university program I’ve ever heard of. Indeed, the male/female imbalance — on the female side — has lately prompted talk of preferences for men. There have never been preferences for gays and lesbians, so far as I know. As for Asians, they’re lucky if they’re merely treated as white. In San Francisco some years back, Chinese-American high school students actually had to out-perform white kids to get into the top schools. But that’s not racial discrimination, not at all, because it was well-intentioned. Sigh.
Blacks are really the only group that has any genuine claim to preferences, and here they’re thrown into the middle of a plainly disingenuous clause more or less as an afterthought. If I were Black, I’d be offended. I hope Detroit readers will be.
If one wants to talk about the major corporations and economic impact of MCRI, one should look at the simple correlation. Michigan is a renowned “leader” in preferences, but it is the only state losing jobs, and all of the auto industry, the key component of the coalition of “green briefs,” is considered the least competitive in the world. They brag about current diversity, but if this is really the key, why are they all going bankrupt?
Of course, its a pretty absurd argument to say that preferences caused, or ending preferences would solve, these problems. The truth is their is little causal reality to either way, and its about a qualitative understanding what competitive means. Does competitive mean 1) having a certain number of people of different skin colors? 2) producing the BEST products (or better) at the lowest (or lower) prices.
If you lower standards (preferences) to accomplish the different skin colors, then economic theory is pretty clear that the lower standards will produce both a lower quality product, and/or skew the price of labor upward (higher price product) because those receiving the preferences are in heavier demand for social reasons. There are several levels of distortions of the market here, none of which can be good, that “buy” the social value of diversity.
Now the offsetting theory is that the social diversity in a corporate culture has some non-quantitative market effect in changing the creativity (assumes either blacks “think differently,” a racist assumption, or that the presence of blacks improves the ability of all to sell to foreigners) or sales ability of the corporation. This has never been quantified or even proven directionality in education – and its stretches even more to industry. But does this weigh against the compelling market reasons an (honest) economist would argue are the costs of diversity?
The solution is higher standards, and if that doesn’t bring in enough “supply” for the corporations, then their political pressure should be for better, wider education. Indeed, the presence of political preferences on race constrains the supply of new ideas and political pressure from those hurt by education and not helped by affirmative action who are falsely lulled into believing it addresses any core inequity. It doesn’t, and therefore sucks oxygen away from reform. Remove preferences based on race and the political “market” will be forced to deal with this issue differently. Do I know exactly how? No. Do I have several roadmaps I would be willing to provide to legislators! Yes. The record reflects that I have been a consistent advocate of alternatives – both creative and simple, both obvious and subtle. Is the media necessarily as interested when they can present this in the lens of conflict?