Discriminations

I’m always on the lookout for odd arguments, and, reading as many defenses of racial discrimination as I do, they are never in short supply. But rarely have I run across a defense of racial preference policies as odd as the one put forward in this editorial in the Muskogee Phoenix, “Public Work Force Should Mirror Public.”

Before getting to its oddity, let me first comment on its lede, the argument in which I suppose is too ubiquitous to describe as odd:

Our public work force should mirror the racial, ethnic and gender makeup of our state.

Why? From what principle, if any, does this desire for racial, ethnic, and gender mirroring derive? Why should Oklahoma’s work force only look like Oklahoma instead of, to pick one alternative, actually being like Oklahoma? Why, that is, should the only qualities worthy of being “mirrored” be ones that show up in a mirror? Why, if mirroring appearance is so important, is it not also important to mirror other important demographic characteristics, such as religion, IQ, educational level, party affiliation, health, etc.? Moreover, does the Muskogee Phoenix believe that everybody who looks alike is alike? Would the Oklahoma work force “mirror” the public if all the Native American workers came from the same tribe? If all the Asian lookalikes were of one national background? If a wholly unrepresentative preponderance of the non-Hispanic, non-black, non-Asian workers came from the same church?

But let us not linger over the part of the Muskogee Phoenix’s argument that, at least by the standard of how widely it is shared, is not odd (all “mirror” arguments are subject to these same questions, and more). Let us instead move to its argument that is more novel:

Public contracts should not be tied to affirmative action. Public contracts should be granted to groups that provide the best services or products at the best price.

But when it comes to employment within our state agencies and offices, our state should seek to give opportunities to those groups that, for one reason or another, are disadvantaged or in the minority.

Aside from those who assume that all government workers are, by definition, less competent than those in the private sector, who knew that the work done under contract for a state is so much more important than the work actually done by the state?

Certainly the reasons why this private and public work, and the workers who do it, should be held to such different standards is not at all self-evident. If, for example, the state of Oklahoma invites bids from contracting firms to build a bridge, it makes sense to give the contract to the firms (not, by the way, the “groups”) who can build the best bridge for the best price. But for reasons I would love to hear the editors of the Muskogee Phoenix attempt to explain, they do not think it important for, say, the engineers hired to work in the Construction Engineering division of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation similarly to be the best qualified. On the contrary, those jobs should be given to “those groups that, for one reason or another, are disadvantaged or in the minority.”

Perhaps the flaw — or one of the flaws — in the Muskogee Phoenix argument here is the assumption that the purpose of public employment is to provide “opportunities” to the hired employees rather than the best services possible to the citizens of the state. Even setting that troublesome assumption aside, however, I’m pretty sure that Oklahoma, like every other state, doesn’t hire “groups” (even the limited groups that the editors recognize as groups), it hires individuals.

The editorial concludes:

Public employment is not just for one race, cultural group or gender.

Public employment should be balanced, and the balance should reflect the greater community at large. That balance always has been attained best by legal protections, and there is no reason to remove those programs in this state.

Perhaps the editors can point to someone, anyone (David Duke, where are you when we need you?) who argues that public employment is for just one race, cultural group (?), or gender. In the absence of anyone making such a ridiculous argument, why waste ink rejecting it?

As for balance, assuming that the Oklahoma Civil Rights Initiative has in fact submitted the required number of valid signatures to place the measure on the ballot, and assuming the absence of Democrats in positions of authority like the ones in Missouri who will do whatever is necessary to keep the measure off the ballot (see here, here, here, and here), the citizens of Oklahoma will get a chance next November to decide whether their state work force should be made up of the best qualified individuals the state can hire or instead be “balanced” to reflect the relative number of members of certain “groups” in the state who share a certain appearance.

If I were a leader of the Oklahoma Civil Rights Initiative, I would copy and disseminate this argument as widely as I could afford. Even though it does so unwittingly (even witlessly) and unintentionally, it provides a strong argument against treating people differently based on their race, ethnicity, or gender.