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Double-Reverse Discrimination?

Regular readers will know that I don?t believe there is any such thing as ?reverse discrimination.? A policy or practice is either discriminatory, or it isn?t. My beliefs aside, I wonder what people who do believe that ?reverse discrimination? is distinguishable in a meaningful way from ordinary, garden variety discrimination would make of the following recent development in Louisville. (HatTip to Hube)

Faced with a lawsuit they say they couldn't win, officials with Jefferson County [Kentucky] Public Schools say they will no longer consider race when hiring or transferring teachers....

?After consulting a variety of experts, we determined there was no way to enforce it,? said district personnel director Bill Eckels, citing last year?s U.S. Supreme Court ruling rejecting the district?s policy of similarly using race in determining student assignment.

There is one twist to the now-settled lawsuit that some will find ironic, but I don?t.

The teacher assignment policy had required that most Jefferson County schools maintain their percentages of black instructors between 7 and 22 percent, depending on the grade level.

In September 2007, [Laukhuf Elementary teacher Lorraine] Hill filed a federal lawsuit, arguing that the district?s policy had unconstitutionally denied her interviews and a transfer to Cane Run or Wellington elementary schools, which already had too many black teachers.

Ms. Hill, not ironically, is black.

Full post as published by Discriminations on March 30, 2008 (boomark / email).