Opponents of the Michigan Civil Rights Intitiative would have you believe that refusing to award preferences based on race is a violation of the civil rights of those thus deprived of special treatment. Of course, if you believe that you also believe the 1964 Civil Rights Act barring discrimination in employment, education, etc., was also a violation of civil rights.
Now come the estimable Roger Clegg and Edward Blum, who propose an amendment to any future immigration reform bill:
Affirmative action on the basis of race, color, or national origin should not be available to any temporary worker—or any recent immigrant, for that matter. In other words, immigrants shouldn’t be given a preference in school admissions, public contracting, and employment on the basis of skin color or ethnicity.
You might think an amendment unnecessary. Does anyone really give preferences to illegal or recent immigrants? Yes, they do. As Blum and Clegg point out,
… amazingly, many recent immigrants are benefiting from our bizarre system of racial and ethnic preferences. Employment preferences present an obvious problem. A recent immigrant (or even a temporary worker) may also benefit when bidding for government contracts for which preferences are frequently awarded on the basis of race and ethnicity. Likewise, he—or a member of his family—might apply to enroll at a university where ethnic preferences are frequently awarded.
The profusion of such preferences is no far-fetched concern. The bean counters at corporations and universities—to say nothing of those in the government—use racial and ethnic preferences extensively, and make no effort to distinguish between new arrivals to this country and those who have been here for generations. Indeed, experience shows that universities are more likely to lower standards for more recent arrivals. At the University of Michigan law school a few years ago, for example, Cuban applicants were treated as “whites,” and therefore were not only ineligible for racial preferences but discriminated against, while those of Mexican ancestry were treated in just the opposite way.
Such an amendment presents obvious difficulties. If there’s nothing wrong in principle with favoring some Americans over others based on nothing more substantical than their skin color or ethnic origin, what’s wrong with favoring immigrants, both legal and illegal? They, after all, would provide as much (maybe more) “diversity” as legal residents.
Blum and Clegg have an answer:
If Congress thinks it is unfair to single out immigrants as ineligible for racial and ethnic preferences, but cannot justify the unjustifiable use of preferences for such recent arrivals, there is an obvious solution: Ban preferences on the basis of skin color and race for anyone here, whether they came over on the Mayflower or last week. That would be the best solution.
John, if “diversity” is the point of preferences, then Blum and Clegg are obviously wrong in calling preferences for recent immigrants “unjustifiable.”
As I’ve said here before (sorry, all), preferences for immigrants over students born here, for foreign students on student visas ditto, and possibly for students illegally in the country over those legally here are reasonable inferences from the “diversity” rationale. If you really want the maximal range of viewpoints in the classroom, this is what you ought to be advocating.
The one passage in Dinesh D’Souza’s Illiberal Education [for those who don’t know it, a mid-80s book mostly aimed, not all that skillfully, at “PC”] that really did stick with me was a paragraph about D’Souza’s own education in India: that in his own classroom there were people of really divergent views, constitutionalists, Communists, monarchists, and so forth. Now, that is diversity that we could use, if only to give us a little perspective. I didn’t know until fairly recently that there were any good arguments for monarchy. I don’t accept them, but there are some, and they are strong, and yet my education led me to believe that they didn’t exist at all. A classroom adorned with the odd monarchist would have been an education indeed. But this isn’t quite what “diversity” means in American reality.
“At the University of Michigan law school a few years ago, for example, Cuban applicants were treated as “whites,” and therefore were not only ineligible for racial preferences but discriminated against,”
Does anyone know why? What, if any, principle dictates treating some Hispanic groups as white, and others as non-white?
Federal Dog writes:
>>>”Does anyone know why? What, if any, principle dictates treating some Hispanic groups as white, and others as non-white?”
It’s the principle of “Race in American Society.” Why this is surprising to you with centuries of history to reference is the question I have for you.
–Cobra
Cobra,
I don’t really know where to start, but do you really think the “principle of ‘Race in American Society'” historically involves classing people as “white” in order to deny them privileges they’d otherwise receive?
To Federal Dog’s question: “Hispanic” isn’t a racial category at all, at least according to the US Census. And it isn’t that unusual for universities to subdivide big racial/ethnic categories and give preferences to some and not others. If you’re Asian-American, for example, you do not generally get preferences — unless you are Filipino-American, in which case perhaps you do.
The University of California doesn’t use preferences any more, but it still breaks out stats by racial/ethnic category, and it separates “Chicanos” (= Mexican-Americans, I think) from “Latinos” (presumably people of other Latin-American background).
“>>>”Does anyone know why? What, if any, principle dictates treating some Hispanic groups as white, and others as non-white?”
It’s the principle of “Race in American Society.”
Talk about not answering the question. Why would Cubans be considered white because of “race in American society?”
Federal Dog writes:
>>>”Talk about not answering the question. Why would Cubans be considered white because of “race in American society?”
Because being “white” and being “Cuban” are not mutually exclusive terms.
>>>”While 89 percent of Cubans living in the U.S. are white, according to the Census Bureau, roughly two-thirds of the people on this island are of African descent. Put another way, most of those who left Cuba for the U.S. after Castro came to power are white; most of those who stayed are black.
The Cuba that many Cuban leaders in south Florida fled after Castro came to power was a country in which blacks were second-class citizens. From 1902 when the country gained its independence until Castro seized control in 1959, Cuban blacks were locked into a system of racial segregation that looked very much like the Jim Crow practices blacks in the U.S. suffered under for nearly a century.
Castro promised to eliminate all vestiges of that racist system and to make blacks full partners in his revolution. That hasn’t happened, but Cuba has made a lot of progress in that direction.”
This sounds VERRRY familiar
If you are perceived as “white” by American society with no further verification requested, that’s how you will be treated in American society. The same applies for “non-whites”, with the stratification of treatment which corresponds almost directly to approximation of skin color and facial features to whiteness.
A recent study about Judge sentencing bares this out:
RACE FACE VALUE
Points to ponder….
–Cobra
“Because being “white” and being “Cuban” are not mutually exclusive terms.”
So? Being “white” and being “Mexican” are not mutually exclusive terms either.
Federal Dog writes:
>>>”So? Being “white” and being “Mexican” are not mutually exclusive terms either.”
If all the illegal immigrants from Mexico were perceived as “white”, you wouldn’t hear hardly a peep from conservatives about illegal immigration.
–Cobra
Cobra, did you have an answer to my question? What rationale justifies treating Cubans as white, but Mexicans as non-white?
Federal Dog writes:
>>>”What rationale justifies treating Cubans as white, but Mexicans as non-white?”
Only SOME Cubans are “treated as white”, as are some Mexicans. They’re the ones who most closely approximate Caucasoid physical features. I don’t know what else you want me to explain, because American history is self-explanatory regarding the difference in treatment based upon racial physical features.
–Cobra
Cobra,
The quoted text says that
At the University of Michigan law school a few years ago, for example, Cuban applicants were treated as “whites,” and therefore were not only ineligible for racial preferences but discriminated against, while those of Mexican ancestry were treated in just the opposite way.
That doesn’t say to me “some”; it implicitly says “all.” Maybe this is untrue, but if that’s your argument, I would like to see some evidence either that Clegg and Blum made this up or that Michigan was sorting applications according to how Caucasoid the applicants look. If they were, say, requiring photos with applications and separating “white Cubans” from “nonwhite Cubans” by eyeball, it’s certainly news to me.
Cobra, just to go back to John’s post for a minute:
If the purpose of affirmative action in education is to compensate for the effects of growing up as a member of a racial minority in a racist society, then obviously people who didn’t grow up in that society at all — recent immigrants, for example — should be excluded. If the point, on the other hand, is increasing the diversity of backgrounds and life histories among the students, immigrants obviously should get preferences, and possibly illegal immigrants should get even bigger preferences, as supplying more diversity. So which is it?
Michelle writes:
>>>”That doesn’t say to me “some”; it implicitly says “all.” Maybe this is untrue, but if that’s your argument, I would like to see some evidence either that Clegg and Blum made this up or that Michigan was sorting applications according to how Caucasoid the applicants look. If they were, say, requiring photos with applications and separating “white Cubans” from “nonwhite Cubans” by eyeball, it’s certainly news to me.”
Given the demographic breakdown of white Cuban immigrants versus black Cuban immigrants, it’s not a wild assumption to predict the percentage of caucasoid applicants in this example, but you’re correct in saying photographic evidence would be the ultimate determinant. I don’t think you’d bet against my assumption with any large sum of money, however.
Michelle writes:
>>>”If the purpose of affirmative action in education is to compensate for the effects of growing up as a member of a racial minority in a racist society, then obviously people who didn’t grow up in that society at all — recent immigrants, for example — should be excluded. If the point, on the other hand, is increasing the diversity of backgrounds and life histories among the students, immigrants obviously should get preferences, and possibly illegal immigrants should get even bigger preferences, as supplying more diversity. So which is it?”
Why am I being presented with this “either/or” choice? Can a program accomplish more than one goal?
Second, are recent immigrants, especially those who don’t have traditionally caucasoid physical features, IMMUNE to the racism of American society simply because of timing? I don’t think so.
–Cobra
Footnote:
Don’t forget to watch the Series finale of “The West Wing” tonight, when President Josiah Bartlett, portrayed by actor Ramón Gerardo Antonio Estévez, transfers the Presidency over to President-elect Matt Santos, portrayed by actor Jimmy Smits.
Let the “caucasoid physical features in Hispanics” debate be engaged fully.
–Cobra