Hiding the Truth about Affirmative Action

Offhand, I can't think of a case where a conservative scholar or institution announced a finding and then refused to release the data on which it was supposedly based. But I know of a number of occasions where that happened on the Left.

Michael Bellesiles (pronounced Bell-Leel) published a book Arming America in 2000, in which he argued that gun ownership was far less common in antebellum America than historians had suspected. The point, of course, was the right to bear arms wasn't something that the founding generation and subsequent generations really cared about. Bellesiles' book received glowing reviews across the MSM, and he won the Bancroft Prize.

The book was a fraud. It was riddled with errors, and much of the data was apparently invented. When asked to produce it, he claimed that it has been damaged when an office flooded. For the first time, the Bancroft prize was withdrawn.

Much the same thing has recently happened in the global warming debate. The records of climate history on which the Anthropogenic Global Warming thesis is based rely on a small number of data sets. The researchers who maintain those data sets have consistently refused to release them to the scrutiny of skeptical scientists, in one case in defiance of court orders. In another case, it was claimed that the original data was lost.

Now we have a third such example. From the Chronicles of Higher Education:

Judge Curtis E.A. Karnow of the California Superior Court for San Francisco County ruled last week that the state bar is not legally obliged to release the data sought by Richard H. Sander, a professor of law at the University of California at Los Angeles, and Joe Hicks, a former governor of the California state bar who is involved in a consortium of affirmative-action researchers organized by Mr. Sander. The two men were joined by the California First Amendment Coalition in their lawsuit, which seeks state-bar data on law students broken down by race and ethnicity.

Here is the question. Affirmative Action is the practice of giving preference to minority candidates in hiring and university admissions. In almost every case, minority status is weighted so heavily that a student who can claim such status can secure admission to the most competitive schools even if his or her test scores and academic record would have automatically disqualified a non-minority applicant.

One of the reasons offered for Affirmative Action is that it will increase the number of lawyers, doctors, etc., who are African American, Hispanic, etc. But does it in fact do that? Students whose academic preparation is modest will often fail when they are placed in the most competitive schools, whereas they might have flourished in a more typical institution. Does Affirmative Action really increase the number of minority students graduating from law schools and entering the legal profession? Or does it rather decrease the number by setting up many promising students for failure in programs for which they are ill-prepared?

That is what Sanders and Hicks want to find out. But the California State Bar refuses to release the data. I think we can assume the answer. When people refuse to release data, it is always because they think the data will confirm something that they don't want to see confirmed. Affirmative Action isn't helping minority students, it is hurting them. But the Left loves the idea of Affirmative Action more than it cares about the real people affected by such policies.

Hiding the data has become a habit in modern times. That is a sign of corruption. No doubt conservatives would be tempted to do it too, if they could get away with it. With the establishment Press and academia arrayed against them, they can't. The California Bar Association, so far, can.

Comments

[Stace Nelson]

Currently, there are only two groups of people that are by law to receive affirmative action under federal statutes. Handicap individuals and disabled veterans. The sad truth of the matter is though that those two groups receive only lips service under those statutes without any real noticeable enforcement or benefit from enacted law. Meanwhile, federal agencies enact policies to monitor and aggressively pursue internal affirmative action programs to benefits minorities regardless of any historical discrimination in an attempt to chase statistical race employment disparities. The consequence of that are official acts of discrimination against nonminority employees in the name of promoting “equality.” The difference is, because the nonminorities are not of a protected minority status, they often have no status under the law to bring grievance or seek redress when they in turn are discriminated against. In 2010, there is no place for affirmative action in America. Aside from the first two groups, let an applicant, student, etc., be judged on their own merit without a finger on the scales.

[SJ Wilcher]

Actually, Executive Order 10925 signed by President Kennedy in 1961 was the first order that required federal contractors to have affirmative action: "The contractor will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, 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, creed, color, or national origin." President Johnson issued Executive Order 11246 in 1965 and assigned enforcement of the order to the Secretary of Labor. Gender was added as a protected category in 1967. The reason for these orders should be obvious. This nation was and continues to be faced with discrimination in the workforce as in society as a whole. In the past year, more than 90,000 charges of discrimination were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The orders require nondiscrimination; eliminating the barriers to opportunity from the entry level to the executive suite. It is not preferences that the orders require, but equal opportunity. To gloss over this point is to ignore history. Affirmative action ends preferences that some have enjoyed for centuries. It levels the playing field for men and women alike and for minorities and nonminorities. White women have benefited most from affirmative action. I agree that individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans have not gained as much from affirmative action programs, because the Executive Order regulations require employment data not available for the disabled and only barely for disabled veterans, but the Obama Administration has taken a strong stand in favor of enforcement for these groups.
To learn about affirmative action, go to www.affirmativeaction.org.

[Stace Nelson]

@SJ An Executive order is not federal law and cannot supersede federal law. I do agree though that discrimination is active in our country; however, affirmative action now facilitates that. To that end, the Supreme Court has ruled against affirmative action.

I have argued cases in front of the EEOC, and received settlements. In roughly 93% of all EEO complaints, the complainant receives NO satisfaction. Those statistics would not support your claims, although I would concede the EEOC is near an impossible venue for any complainant to receive justice.

Again, only handicapped persons and disabled veterans are by law to be afforded affirmative action.