Discriminations

Lincoln always claimed, correctly, that he was not an abolitionist. Rather than calling for the immediate abolition of slavery, he supported policies, such as halting the expansion of slavery into the territories, that he believed would put slavery “in the course of ultimate extinction.”

I suspect that, in the long run (at least if we set aside John Maynard Keynes’ famous observation that “in the long run we are all dead”), the most significant achievement of Michigan’s Proposition 2 will not be abolishing racial preferences. They are likely to continue, under the table and outside the law, though to a reduced extent, for quite a while. But the overwhelming rejection of racial preferences by voters in a blue state, combined with similar votes in other blue states (California and Washington), may well suggest that racial preferences are now in that course of “ultimate extinction” that Lincoln envisaged for slavery. (In any event, let’s hope that they, unlike slavery, can be abolished without a civil war.)

If that proves to be true, it will largely be because the Michigan vote has emboldened many people who long harbored reservations about racial preference to speak out, no longer afraid (or as afraid) of being called a racist for expressing a view that is so widely shared by people who are obviously not all racists.

Consider, as just one small example, the following letter from a Michigan alumnus that just appeared in the Michigan Daily:

I‘ve been reading the comments and articles written about the debate over Proposal 2. What many of its opponents are missing is that it isn’t being black that causes poorer SAT scores and application essays. It’s being poor.

Opponents of Proposal 2 believe that being black somehow makes you unable to do well in the classroom: That’s racist and unacceptable, especially from the University. Proposal 2 says nothing about helping low-income families come to the University; it only bans the use of race and gender preferences.

Instead of spending money fighting an amendment passed by the majority of Michigan voters, why doesn’t the University set up programs in the School of Education that can help the poorest parts of Michigan in the same way Teach for America does? My guess is that affirmative action is easier and trying to solve the discrepancy between the poorest and the richest schools is more difficult. The leaders of the University would rather put a band-aid over the problem and tell themselves they’re good people for doing it, even while they stick their heads in the sand and tell us that skin color alone determines intelligence and opportunity. The University should try to help disadvantaged students meet standards instead of lowering them with a system that stereotypes applicants based on skin color.

In the same vein I was struck by a more or less off hand comment by a long-time supporter of racial preferences on the Michigan faculty, quoted in a balanced, “plague on both their houses” article on a recent BAMN march by Donn Fresard, the editor of the Michigan Daily. Fresard related a conversation with David Singer, an old lefty professor emeritus of political science who has supported racial preferences since before the term “diversity” was used to disguise them, as being “confident that the University could find correlates of race that it could consider without breaking the law....”

Neither the alum’s nor the professor’s views are novel or even that noteworthy, even though both were vociferously rejected by opponents of Proposition 2 during the campaign. But as they and similar views move to the fore, I believe their increasing prominence in the ongoing debate over race suggests that Prop. 2’s most lasting contribution will not be the immediate abolition of racial preferences but the dialog about alternatives that it has made not only possible but respectable.

UPDATE

Ward Connerly has 10 points on the meaning of Prop. 2 that are both provocative and profound.

Of particular interest, I think, was his long Point 9 on the failure of many Republicans to live up to their principles.

It was Ronald Reagan who created the political doctrine — known as the “Eleventh Commandment” — that “thou shall not speak ill of other Republicans.” President Reagan, however, never lived to meet some of today’s Republicans, especially those running for office in Michigan. Had he done so, I believe he would not have been so charitable in his counsel.

For the reasons stated above, and others, I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Connerly’s conclusion:

I suffer no delusion that ballot initiatives or court decisions will bring race, gender and ethnic preferences to a screeching halt. Such practices have become such a part of the institutional culture of so many public agencies that it will take decades to curtail them. But, the battle to end these insidious practices is now underway. We have no choice but to complete that which must be done.