Breast Beating

Although the amount of competition makes the choice hard, perhaps my favorite of the ludicrous, even hysterical arguments against the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) is that, as a “leader” recently purporting to “educate” an audience at Central Michigan University put it,

approving the MCRI would mean gender-specific programs — like free breast, cervical and prostate cancer testing — also would be at risk.

Nor was this an isolated bit of lunacy; this canard has been repeated so often as to be a mantra of the opponents of MCRI, as I’ve frequently mentioned (such as here, here, and here). Thus, in the second of those linked articles, a columnist in the Detroit Free Press wrote that

If MCRI passes, women can forget about programs such as breast and cervical cancer screening, breast-feeding promotion, domestic violence treatment and prevention programs,

The third link is to the same charge, this time from a statewide organizer for One United Michigan, the leading anti-MCRI organization, who sings the now familiar hymn:

A ban on affirmative action could mean the end of state funding for gender-specific health services, including breast, prostate and cervical cancer screenings….

You’d think that if these wild accusations were true someone would have noticed that breast cancer screenings, etc., had been banned in California and Washington, states that have already passed bans on preferential treatment virtually identical to what is proposed in Michigan. I assume no one takes these charges seriously enough to confirm that women’s health programs are still alive and well in those states. (But why has the press, which continues to print such charges, not checked?)

Here, I think, is where the Michigan Secretary of State can come to the rescue of at least a minimal amount of sanity in the ongoing debate over MCRI. Regular readers here will recall that the ballot language proposed by the MCRI organizers, quoted here, stated that state agencies

shall not discriminate against, or grant 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.

That was perfectly clear and concise. So of course the state mucked it up. In his wisdom, and at his sole discretion (he had the power), the Michigan Secretary of State substituted the following language, which is the operative part of what will actually appear on the ballot:

A PROPOSAL TO AMEND THE STATE CONSTITUTION TO BAN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION PROGRAMS THAT GIVE PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT TO GROUPS OR INDIVIDUALS BASED ON THEIR RACE, GENDER, COLOR, ETHNICITY OR NATIONAL ORIGIN FOR PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT, EDUCATION OR CONTRACTING PURPOSES.

This confused the issue somewhat, as Curtis Crawford has pointed out. What about racial preferences that are not part of an “affirmative action” program? Indeed, what is an “affirmative action program”? What about “affirmative action programs” that don’t contain racial/ethnic preferences, etc., etc. (But then, we didn’t really need to be reminded that government writing rarely if ever makes anything clearer.)

The original language as proposed by MCRI was clearly better, but there is one so far unappreciated benefit, I think, of the now official ballot language: it proves that the breast-beating frenzy of the equality opponents is hysterical nonsense.

How, you ask, does it do that? Easy. Does any remotely sane person think that “breast and cervical cancer screening, breast-feeding promotion, domestic violence treatment and prevention programs,” etc., etc. are “affirmative action programs”? They obviously are not, and thus equally obviously would not be affected at all by the passage of MCRI.

Say What? (3)

  1. Federal Dog October 19, 2006 at 2:47 pm | | Reply

    So why do you think they don’t just come out and claim that if it passes, every woman and minority will have to be summarily executed?

    Sheesh.

  2. Hans Bader October 20, 2006 at 12:05 pm | | Reply

    There are additional reasons why breast cancer screenings are not affected by MCRI.

    First, men can get breast cancer, as former U.S. Senator Ed Brooke (R-Mass.) did, and as hundreds of men do every year. Certain categories of men need to be informed about the risk, too, even though the risk is lower for men than for women.

    Thus, it’s not even a gender classification to help breast cancer victims, as a matter of fact. See Personnel Administrator v. Feeney (Supreme Court, 1979) (fact that veterans’ preference helps mostly men does not make it a gender preference, since a few women are veterans).

    Second, even if men did not also have breasts (albeit smaller, less functional ones), helping someone based on unique gender-based physical attributes is not treated as discrimination anyway under the Supreme Court’s Geduldig decision, which held that pregnancy-discrimination is not sex discrimination. (Congress responded to that decision by expressly banning discrimination against pregnant women; but courts still cite Geduldig to uphold helping women based on gender-specific physical conditions).

    Third, MCRI only covers government contracts, employment employment, and education, not medical treatment.

  3. John from OK October 22, 2006 at 5:08 pm | | Reply

    I’m suprised they didn’t mention the student who made himself a Central Michigan Chipewa costume using a macaroni breastplate and nearly got expelled. “If MCRI passes, more breastplates, more breast cancer!”

Say What?