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Would Passage Of The Arizona Civil Rights Initiative Invalidate Arizona?s Tough New Immigration Law?

In the post immediately below I castigated the liberal hypocrisy of defending affirmative action admissions, hiring, etc., because those policies, so the liberals assure us (wink! wink!), are not discriminatory because they use race as ?only one of many factors? while they castigate Arizona?s new law allowing police to demand proof of being here legally of anyone about whom they have a ?reasonable suspicion? is not ? even though that law specifically states that officers ?may not solely consider race, color or national origin ... except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona Constitution.?

Alas, liberals are not the only ones with consistency issues where racial profiling is concerned. Conservatives like me have a tendency to oppose all government use of race, and yet most of us recognize that there are some circumstances where such use is reasonable, even necessary. The classic example of reasonably ?taking race into account? (and for some of us, just about the only example) is selecting a police officer to go undercover in, say, a black or Jamaican or Mexican gang.

Many would also not regard it as impermissible for police, if they have reports of a young black man fleeing the scene of a crime, to give heightened scrutiny to young black men in that area, or for airport security personnel to pay more attention to young men from Arab countries than to, say, grandmothers from Iceland. (After the first Icelandic grandmother sets off a bomb, of course, these priorities will be adjusted.)

These issues can be difficult, and it?s possible they will become more difficult in Arizona after the election next November, since a revived version of the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative will be on the ballot.

The operative core of ACRI states, as most of you will recall:

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.

Strictly speaking, this language says nothing about the police stopping those they suspect, not ?solely? on the basis of race or ethnicity, of being illegal; by its terms it covers only ?public employment, public education, or public contracting.? Still, supporters of banning preferential treatment based on race, both inside and outside Arizona, should be prepared to say whether or not we believe the new Arizona law conflicts with either the letter or spirit of the ban on state discrimination or preferential treatment based on race or ethnicity.

Full post as published by Discriminations on April 25, 2010 (boomark / email).