The Anti-Equality Argument

The Michigan Citizen describes itself as “America’s Most Progressive Community Newspaper.” Insofar as “progressive,” unfortunately, has become a synonym for wacko, it may well be right, at least judging by this article on the fate of Proposition 2, the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative that amended the Michigan constitution to bar discrimination by state agencies on the basis of race, ethnicity, or gender. (Thanks to reader Alex Bensky for the tip.)

For example, it reports:

DETROIT — Civil rights advocates are optimistic that the voter-approved affirmative action ban will eventually be completely rescinded. To delay the implementation of Proposal 2 at three major state universities is considered a win.

“I think this is a tremendous victory,” said George Washington, attorney for the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). “Now we must mobilize to win a stay for the rest of the year and every year afterwards. We have an excellent chance of winning our lawsuit against this racist law.”

Of course, no newspaper, not even “America’s Most Progressive Community Newspaper,” can be held responsible for the views that it reports, but it requires no stretch to see editorial alignment with this hope, even though the paper does conclude by noting that “[o]thers have not been so optimistic that Proposal 2 can be overturned.”

It should come as no surprise to most DISCRIMINATIONS readers to hear a “civil rights” lawyer arguing that a measure that bans discrimination on the basis of race is “racist,” but others are entitled to be confused. For those who have not encountered this rather weird argument, lawyer Washington provides a helpful summary:

“Proposal 2 created discrimination at the heart of the political process,” he said. “A veteran, a resident, an alumni, a son of a congressman or a university administrator can still get preferential treatment at the universities, but the only people who cannot are Blacks, Latinos and other minorities, and women.”

By this logic, of course, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was and is unconstitutional. To pick one of its measures more or less at random, its Title VI, Section 601, provided:

No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

By BAMN logic, a “veteran, a resident, an alumni, a son of a congressman or a university administrator” could all be excluded from or denied benefits of or be subject to discrimination under some educational program receiving federal assistance without running afoul of Title VI. Title VI, in this twisted view, affirmatively encourages discrimination against everyone except a small subset of people who are protected because of their specially protected “race, color, or national origin.”

In my view, this bizarre logic doesn’t even rise to the level of Orwellian nonsense. The CRA barred treating people differently based on their race. If BAMN has a problem with that, it should lobby for that act’s repeal.

As long as I’m here, I’ll mention one other logical flaw in the BAMN argument, even though it’s much more pedestrian than the one above.

The suit also claims that testing and grading systems used to choose successful college candidates are inherently discriminatory, and that the educational systems that most Blacks and minorities attend prior to college are unequal.

It seems to me that insofar as the schools “most Blacks and minorities attend” are inferior, college admission tests that measure and thus reveal that inferiority are not discriminatory. That is, insofar as those schools are inferior, the students who attend them don’t learn as much as students who attend other schools. Unless the claim is that colleges do not have a right to choose better students over less well prepared students, it hardly makes sense to complain about the tests.