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Embarrassing, Unwitting Admissions By Affirmative Action Addicts

As I recently mentioned here, linking to my actual discussion here, the Arizona Civil Rights Amendment, which will prohibit the state from granting preferences based on race, ethnicity, or sex, will be on Tuesday?s ballot. Defenders of preferential treatment in the state, such as Arizona?s Own ?Obama Girl,? State Representative Kyrsten Sinema, whom we encountered there, have been both agitated and voluble, which has caused some of their statements in defense of the racial status quo to be more revealing than they intended.

Inside Higher Ed, for example, quotes Sinema claiming that

the measure would have a ?widespread effect,? restricting federal and private funding on which the state?s many public universities and community colleges depend to offer support programs aimed at female students or students of color. She said that although the measure would not affect admissions -- quotas based on race are already illegal -- the measure?s supporters are spreading that misconception.

Sinema, of course, never explains how the state?s public colleges and universities ?depend? on programs whose benefits are restricted based on race or sex, or why they should. Even more interesting, however, is her tacit admission that eliminating preferential treatment based on race, sex, and ethnicity would actually put an end to ?quotas? ? not in admissions, which she says do not exist, but everywhere else.

In fairness, perhaps I should attribute this equation of preferential treatment with quotas not to Sinema but to the author of the IHE article, Allie Grasgreen, who in introducing this issue wrote that the proposal ?would amend the Constitution to prohibit affirmative action in public education, employment and contracting when the amendment refers only to discrimination and preferential treatment and never uses the term ?affirmative action.? Grasgreen is thus more honest in noting the interchangeability of these terms than most defenders of ?affirmative action.?

Dan Hurley, director of state relations and policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, was also refreshingly if unwittingly honest in his prediction that the amendment will pass but probably won?t make any difference because state officials will find was to get around it.

Hurley said that the initiative will probably pass -- putting Arizona in the ranks of California, Washington, Michigan and, most recently, Nebraska -- but that its impact will be ?pretty negligible? because colleges can find alternative ways to recruit diverse students and employees. ?Certainly the ban on affirmative action creates a social conservative statement,? Hurley said, ?but in terms of having a significant impact on admission, enrollment and staffing in that state, I just don?t see that happening.?

Of course it has been neither the intent nor the effect of any of these civil rights initiatives to prevent or inhibit ?diversity,? although I still find it weird and even offensive that preference defenders describe some individual students and employees as ?diverse,? as those José or Jamal were by definition ?diverse? characters.

How odd that liberals would so readily concede that the determination to treat individuals without regard to their race is ?a social conservative statement.? That concession is a gun they?ve aimed with uncharacteristic accuracy at their own feet.

Full post as published by Discriminations on October 30, 2010 (boomark / email).