THE DISCOMFORT OF LIBERAL RACISM

The Scalia Model (David S. Broder, June 29, 2003, The Washington Post)

During oral arguments, he had told Michigan's counsel that if the law school was so hellbent on including more minorities, it should simply lower its admission standards -- a stunningly patronizing and insulting comment. Having lost, he now said scornfully that the lessons of mutual understanding and tolerance Michigan was seeking to provide by building a diverse student body were more appropriately learned by "people three feet shorter and 20 years younger than the full-grown adults at the University of Michigan law school, in institutions ranging from Boy Scout troops to public-school kindergartens."

As if that ridiculous contention were not enough, Scalia then said that the O'Connor opinion opens the way to "racial discrimination" in public and private employment, adding sarcastically that he was sure that "the nonminority individuals who are deprived of a legal education, a civil service job or any job at all by reason of their skin color will surely understand."

That's uncomfortably close to the infamous television ad Jesse Helms ran in 1990, when the then-senator from North Carolina was running for reelection against Harvey Gantt, the African American former mayor of Charlotte. Helms's narrator said, "You needed that job. And you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority because of racial quotas." Scalia's scare-tactic scenario constitutes almost as naked an appeal to racial antagonism. It's not what you expect to hear from a justice of the Supreme Court.

Mr. Broder's real complaint is with the bitter truth about what he desires, which Mr. Scalia spoke bluntly about. In fact, Mr. Broder's own colleague engaged in a bit of truth-telling too: Truth From Justice Ginsburg (Colbert I. King, June 28, 2003, Washington Post)

Fear of things going too far -- of people of color being helped at white expense -- is behind the fight against affirmative action, too. It's almost as old as America.

As Mr. King forthrightly admits, even brags, affirmative action involves a lowering of standards for one race which thereby benefits at the expense of another. It is patronizing precisely for the reason that it assumes certain races incapable of meeting the standards required of other races. We can debate whether that is a good and necessary thing, but Mr. Broder can't coherently argue with these fundamental truths. Mr. Scalia may be impolite to point out that this is reverse racism, but he's hardly being a racial extremist. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 2, 2003 10:46 AM