January 15, 2003
THE LOTT FALLOUT (cont.):
President to Oppose Race-Based Admissions: White House Weighs Politics and Policy In U-Michigan Case (Mike Allen and Charles Lane, January 15, 2003, Washington Post)President Bush plans to declare his opposition to University of Michigan admissions policies that give preference to black and Hispanic students, injecting the White House into the Supreme Court's most far-reaching affirmative action case in a generation, administration officials said yesterday.The officials said Bush, who faces a deadline Thursday for registering opposition with the high court, plans to pay tribute to the value of racial diversity in higher education. But he plans to argue that Michigan's approach is flawed.
The issue is politically sensitive and legally complex, and top administration aides last night were unable to provide crucial details about the brief's legal arguments, which are still the subject of discussion by top presidential advisers. For example, it was unclear whether the brief's praise of diversity would go so far as to assert that achieving racial diversity is so important that it justifies college admissions officials to consider race, in some fashion.
"Not all the decisions have been made," an official said. The decision could come as early as today, the official said.
The aides said Bush plans to point to an "affirmative access" program he championed as governor of Texas. It guaranteed state-college admission to the top 10 percent of each high school graduating class, regardless of race.
If you had a dollar for every time someone who should have known better, on both the Left and the Right, wrote about how the Lott affair was going to hurt the GOP and cripple the President's ability to forward a conservative agenda on racial issues, you'd be rich today. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 15, 2003 4:08 PM
I don't know, Orrin. Bush's statement today elucidated just about the bare minimum of actual opposition to racial preferences, and contained a host of galling concessions to political correctness. The media will play it differently, of course, but there surely could have been a stronger, more confident assertion of the principle of colorblindness.
Posted by: Paul Cella at January 15, 2003 9:35 PMContrast the mushiness of the racial preferences statement to this
unequivocal endorsement of the sanctity of human life by the President.
Bush is letting the terms of the debate get
away from him. What I heard was that the
spin was on deprived minorities.
If he had simply stated what you get for
being a poor black applying to UM (40 points out of 100
needed for admission), he'd have ended the
"debate" before it even started.
As it is, the president of UM can get away with
saying in public that race isn't a deciding
factor in admissions. If Bush had been really
forthright, the academic would have been
hooted off the stage.
Debate? There's no debate. It's up to 5 Supreme Court justices. You guys want him to beat his chest, which may give a visceral thrill, but hardly advances the cause.
Posted by: oj at January 16, 2003 8:26 AMOK, public discussion. Why do lawyers write
law review articles attempting to influence
appellate judges.
Bush made a big mistake to use the word
quotas. The dean of UM Law School replied
this morning that the percentage of blacks
at the school is less (about half, he says)
than the percentage of blacks in the country.
Maybe so.
But if Bush had simply stated what the
point-scale is, everybody would have
immediately seen that the system is unfair.
I agree with OJ - the justices weren't going to be swayed by Bush's speech.
Bush's speech was designed for political consumption. Maybe it could have been better but a) the word qouta has a negative connotation that sticks in people's minds and b) in a week or so all people will remember is that Bush took a stand, not what his speech was.
Harry:
What does 20 points mean? By the time you've explained it you've lost the argument.
OK, personalize it. Bring in the kind of people
Bush puts on the stand with him at the convention.
I disagree, Orrin. Bill Bennett debated Lee Bollinger on the Today Show this morning and soundly defeated him -- in part by mocking the "point" system very effectively: "What? are we going to start awarding points according to skin color: 20 for the darkest kid, 15 for a lighter-skinned guy, etc."
Bollinger had no response except to refer ominously to Brown v. Board of Education
, which tactic Bennett calmly countered by remarking the real segregation that does occur at schools like Michigan: enthic dorms, black-only graduation ceremonies, and so forth.
It was a commanding performance, and while I recognize that Bush is bounded by political considerations, Bennett's contrast with the President did not reflect well on the latter. Remember that the Court ruled racial quotas unconstitutional 25 years ago with Bakke
-- and a hell of alot of good it did.
The political boys at the White House emasculated solid and noble principles on this one.
pj:
You'll note that Mr. Bennett, ably as he argues, has never been elected to any office.Politics just isn't the debate club--it's the art of the possible.
Odd to find you urging Bush to pull his
punches, though.