Who’s “Ignorant About Affirmative Action?”

George Curry, a prominent black journalist, writing in New America Media (“Expanding The News Lens Through Ethnic Media”), after quoting one of McCain’s many statements that he opposes quotas, writes that

Obviously, John McCain is ignorant about affirmative action. If he weren’t, he’d know that the concept of affirmative action does include quotas. In fact, Executive Order 11246 outlawing discrimination in federal contracting forbids the use of quotas in affirmative action programs. The original order was issued by President Johnson in 1965 and extended by every subsequent president, including Ronald Reagan and Bush I and II.

First, I assume he meant to write, “… the concept of affirmative action does not include quotas.” But let’s give him a bye on that one. Everyone makes typos, some of us (I should, and do, know) more than others.

But that’s the only bye. Based on this column, and others (see below), I would say that if Mr. Curry wants to stare ignorance about affirmative in the face, he need look no further than the closest mirror.

The “original” Presidential Executive Order implementing affirmtive action was not President Johnson’s 11246 in 1965; it was President Kennedy’s 10925 in 1961. Directly contrary to Curry’s defense of racial preference policies, both executive orders barred the federal government from discriminating against “any employee or applicant … because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” (11246), and they both required the government to treat all applicants and employees “without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin.”

Curry’s column is a diatribe against the ignorant McCain for seeking “to ban affirmative action in Arizona,” but the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative that McCain supports does no more than restate the principle embodied in the two Presidential Executive Orders. It states:

The state 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

Curry, in short, like all other defenders of preferential treatment based on race, must ignore or distort the history of civil rights in this country, and this column is far from Curry’s only example.

I discussed an earlier example here (“Currying Favor With Affirmative Actionists”), taking issue with Curry’s false assertion that Executive Order 11246 (he ignored Kennedy’s earlier one here as well) offered no protections to whites, Asians, etc.:

In other words, whites, Asians, etc., need not apply, no matter what “hardship” they have endured or overcome. He acknowledges that

the needs of impoverished whites should be addressed. However, they are not covered by affirmative action and could be helped by antipoverty measures. The presidential debate provided further proof that most of the confusion over affirmative action is because it is too often mis-defined.

It is Curry, however, who has egregiously “mis-defined” affirmative action. In agreeing that quotas are illegal, he quotes President Johnson’s Executive Order 11246 on affirmative action, but if he had actually read it, or remembered it from when he read it long ago, he could never have written that poor (or other) whites or Asians “are not covered by affirmative action,” at least as it was originally understood and sold. I’ve quoted it too many times to cite, but will do so again now, from its Section 202 discussing the obligations of federal contractors:

(1) The contractor will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex or national origin…. [Emphasis added]

What part of “any employee or applicant” does Curry not understand.?

Curry did not refer to President Kennedy’s earlier Executive Order 10925, but if he had he would have found that it embodied the same, now abandoned principle.

WHEREAS discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin is contrary to the Constitutional principles and policies of the United States; and

WHEREAS it is the plain and positive obligation of the United States Government to promote and ensure equal opportunity for all qualified persons, without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin, employed or seeking employment with the Federal Government and on government contracts; and

WHEREAS it is the policy of the executive branch of the Government to encourage by positive measures equal opportunity for all qualified persons within the Government….

Again, what part of “all” does Curry not understand? [Emphasis added]

If Mr. Curry wants to stare ignorance about affirmative in the face, he need look no further than the closest mirror.