BAMN Damns MCRI

Today’s Michigan Daily prints a response by the chair and another member of the campus chapter of BAMN to the passage by Michigan voters of a constitutional amendment banning racial, ethnic, and gender preferences by state agencies. It differs very little from the response of UM President Mary Sue Coleman, discussed here.

Among the proclamations of the BAMNers, followed my my comments in italics:

• There must be no drop in underrepresented minority student enrollment at Michigan universities!
• The impact of Proposal 2 on minority student admission to our universities is a question of social power, not legal interpretation abstracted from the social struggle.
• We must stand on the principle that we will not accept a drop in minority enrollment at any Michigan universities. [So, the “principle” is what BAMN will “accept”?]
• In California, the failure of the chancellors of the University of California to utilize every legal means available to them to maintain underrepresented minority enrollment has led to a huge drop in the numbers and proportion of black, Hispanic and other underrepresented minority students in the UC system. [This, of course, is simply false. The numbers of minorities in the UC System is about equal to, or slightly higher, than the number before Prop. 209 banned racial preferences.]
• A whole range of university admissions policy changes – from discounting standardized test scores to defending the use of race in admissions to combat the discrimination and bias inherent in Michigan’s highly segregated, separate and unequal K-12 education system – can provide the basis for maintaining and even increasing underrepresented minority enrollment at our universities. [Exactly how is “defending the use of race in admissions” compatible with a constitutional amendment barring the use of race in admissions?]
• Proposal 2 should never have been placed on the ballot in the first place. [So, no obligation to obey it?]
• Women and black, Hispanic and other minority communities will not accept being relegated to second-class treatment. [Being treated the same as everyone else, without regard to race, gender, or ethnicity, is “second-class treatment”?]
• Giving a white majority the right to determine black and other minority people’s rights in the privacy and secrecy of a voting booth is a recipe for advancing white privilege…. We do not accept the idea that white people are entitled to determine, through a vote or by any other means, whether minorities should have equality and civil rights [What “rights” were violated by the “white majority” vote requiring that all people must be treated without regard to their race? Does “equality” require, or even allow, preferential treatment? ]

I’ve seen quite a bit about what BAMN and its friends will not accept. What I’d be interested in seeing is something laying out their affirmative (if you’ll pardon the expression) view of what they actually mean by “civil rights” and “equality.” If being treated the same as everyone else is “second-class treatment,” what is first-class treatment?