January 25, 2003
GIVE THE REVEREND SHARPTON HIS MICHIGAN POINTS:
Give president 150 points for duplicity (Cynthia Tucker, 01/26/03, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)While the admissions staff are looking to admit a "critical mass" of underrepresented minorities, they read each application and judge it on its merits.In the legalisms of affirmative action, the word "quota" has a specific meaning. The Bakke case, which struck down quotas, invalidated a California medical school admissions policy that specifically set aside 16 seats for minority applicants. The Michigan program has no such rigid numeric goal.
But the Bush White House has conjured up a new meaning by analyzing years of law school admissions and discovering that, each year, the class happens to have an enrollment of minorities that hovers between 12 and 20 percent (a significant spread).
That, they claim, is a hidden quota.
By that logic, the U.S. Senate and the Oval Office have a quota of zero for African-Americans. If you analyze the history of both institutions, you will find that the Oval Office has never had a black occupant and the U.S. Senate usually does not. Who will file the lawsuit protesting the quota system in the highest levels of national politics?
Ridiculous? So is the president's claim that the University of Michigan uses a quota system.
What in the heck is a "critical mass" if not a predetermined minimum of minority students? And what is she talking about in that Senate and presidency riff? For it to be at all analogous we'd need weighted voting. For example, if the Democrats are serious about affirmative action and about this system being worthwhile, how about a primary system that gives black candidates an extra 15% when the votes are tallied? Posted by Orrin Judd at January 25, 2003 5:10 PM
I have not informed myself about the UM law
school, but the undergraduate school gives
dark skins 20 points, or, if you prefer, it deducts
20 (out of 100) for white skin.
Close enough to a quota for government work.
There are better schools to attend in Michigan. Regardless of skin color.
Posted by: Bartman at January 26, 2003 8:24 AMWell. We're talking Cynthia Tucker here. Basically an unflinching, unabashed leftist. You have to be unflinching to willfully advocate race-based preference programs in pretty clear defiance of the constitution.
She did, however, pour woe all over Cynthia McKinney, so she's not altogether out of her mind by any stretch.
Whack:
If our definition of sanity is despising Cynthia McKinney, we've set the bar too low.
Just as leviathan wishes to exempt itself from "smart gun" legislation, so it exempts itself from affirmative action. And so the votes are bought with someone else's $2 bill.
Posted by: Lou Gots at January 26, 2003 7:20 PMNot bought--that's just walkin' around money...
Posted by: oj at January 26, 2003 10:25 PMOrrin wil lget this one, I think.
Some years ago, when the Braves were in
the World Series, Tucker wrote a column about
team nicknames, in which she asked,
sarcastically, how whites would feel about a
team named the Crackers.
Harry:
I always thought one of the Negro League teams should have called themselves the Atlanta Black Crackers.