Thursday, June 26, 2003
Supreme Decisions
Two interesting decisions were handed down (where did that idiom come from anyway?) by the Supreme Court that are interesting and newsworthy. The two decisions concerned Homosexual behavior in the case of Texas' anti-sodomy laws and the second concerned the methods in which Michigan University's Law School admits its students.
The first issue is not so interesting to me. I see it as an inevitable consequence of what happens when a cultural/social reality meets the spirit of the American Bill of Rights. The 'thumpers not withstanding, what someone does consensually (consexually?) with someone else is of no interest to me. The gay community will tout this as a triumph of their lifestyle and the homophobes and 'thumpers will consider this as irreducible evidence of American decadence, but both are wrong.
No one for even a moment believed that PROHIBITING sodomy curtailed it. It simply forced it out of sight. Similarly, LEGALIZING a "...noncommericial, consensual conduct..." doesn't mean that Sodomy Shops are going to pop up on every street corner. The only practical difference is that (in the words of Clarence Thomas) "Punishing someone for expressing his sexual preference through noncommercial consensual conduct with another adult does not appear to be a worthy way to expend valuable law enforcement resources." Fine by me! Why waste money and court time on a patently victimless crime when Islamic terrorists and pedophile priests are out looking for their next victim right now?
That brings us to the reaffirmation of the Bakke case (from about 25 years ago or so) in the case of the University of Michigan's Law School and the fact that they use race as a contributing factor in deciding who they will admit to their school.
It is rare that I see blatant stupidity on the part of a Supreme Court Justice. Sandra Day O'Conner expressed her approving recognition of the statement by Michigan's Law School Dean that "...the extent to which race is considered in admissions . . . varies from one applicant to another." It "may play no role" or it "may be a determinative factor." Uh, what's that?
The case was filed at a time when Michigan's Law School requirements were very plain: you needed 150 points to be admitted and you got 20 points if you were a minority. That's a 13% bonus for being whatever it means to be a minority today. So what the dean meant was that IF the applicant had 150 points without the "minority bonus", then he/she was in. If they had only 130 points but were a minority, they too were in. If you had 149 points and you were of the majority (presumably a pale male) then you had to apply to some other school even though you were presumably better qualified than the minority applicant that scored 130. This statement by the dean was met with "approval"? How about "disdain" instead?
The fundamental problem with Affirmative Action is that there is no end game. There is no plan or even consideration about WHEN such a racist program should be ended or the criteria to determine if it did what it was purported to do. It took 25 years to essentially revisit the Affirmative Action issue (variously called the "reverse discrimination" issue) and I hope that it isn't another 25 years before it is finally corrected.
Discrimination is discrimination and there are no disclaimers to allow for "some" discrimination. If we collectively choose to reward certain people for their minority status, then let's not do so through the courts but through a constitutional amendment. If we collectively believe that minorities... scratch that, let's call it like it is and say "blacks"... should be given preferential treatment in education and hiring then let's do so formally by altering the Constitution to allow for this. Permanently. These internally inconsistent fuzzy judgments that skirt the core issue - or distort the issue into something that it is not - hurts America.
There can be little dispute that every minority that attends Michigan's Law School will indeed have an invisible asterisk after their name and the footnote will be that they may not REALLY have earned their position at the school by merit but by virtue of their genitalia or skin color. They have to wonder about this. They have to ask themselves, "did I REALLY achieve something or was it given to me? Did I EARN the job or was it GIVEN to me to satisfy a minority quota?"
Next diatribe.... "diversity".
Two interesting decisions were handed down (where did that idiom come from anyway?) by the Supreme Court that are interesting and newsworthy. The two decisions concerned Homosexual behavior in the case of Texas' anti-sodomy laws and the second concerned the methods in which Michigan University's Law School admits its students.
The first issue is not so interesting to me. I see it as an inevitable consequence of what happens when a cultural/social reality meets the spirit of the American Bill of Rights. The 'thumpers not withstanding, what someone does consensually (consexually?) with someone else is of no interest to me. The gay community will tout this as a triumph of their lifestyle and the homophobes and 'thumpers will consider this as irreducible evidence of American decadence, but both are wrong.
No one for even a moment believed that PROHIBITING sodomy curtailed it. It simply forced it out of sight. Similarly, LEGALIZING a "...noncommericial, consensual conduct..." doesn't mean that Sodomy Shops are going to pop up on every street corner. The only practical difference is that (in the words of Clarence Thomas) "Punishing someone for expressing his sexual preference through noncommercial consensual conduct with another adult does not appear to be a worthy way to expend valuable law enforcement resources." Fine by me! Why waste money and court time on a patently victimless crime when Islamic terrorists and pedophile priests are out looking for their next victim right now?
That brings us to the reaffirmation of the Bakke case (from about 25 years ago or so) in the case of the University of Michigan's Law School and the fact that they use race as a contributing factor in deciding who they will admit to their school.
It is rare that I see blatant stupidity on the part of a Supreme Court Justice. Sandra Day O'Conner expressed her approving recognition of the statement by Michigan's Law School Dean that "...the extent to which race is considered in admissions . . . varies from one applicant to another." It "may play no role" or it "may be a determinative factor." Uh, what's that?
The case was filed at a time when Michigan's Law School requirements were very plain: you needed 150 points to be admitted and you got 20 points if you were a minority. That's a 13% bonus for being whatever it means to be a minority today. So what the dean meant was that IF the applicant had 150 points without the "minority bonus", then he/she was in. If they had only 130 points but were a minority, they too were in. If you had 149 points and you were of the majority (presumably a pale male) then you had to apply to some other school even though you were presumably better qualified than the minority applicant that scored 130. This statement by the dean was met with "approval"? How about "disdain" instead?
The fundamental problem with Affirmative Action is that there is no end game. There is no plan or even consideration about WHEN such a racist program should be ended or the criteria to determine if it did what it was purported to do. It took 25 years to essentially revisit the Affirmative Action issue (variously called the "reverse discrimination" issue) and I hope that it isn't another 25 years before it is finally corrected.
Discrimination is discrimination and there are no disclaimers to allow for "some" discrimination. If we collectively choose to reward certain people for their minority status, then let's not do so through the courts but through a constitutional amendment. If we collectively believe that minorities... scratch that, let's call it like it is and say "blacks"... should be given preferential treatment in education and hiring then let's do so formally by altering the Constitution to allow for this. Permanently. These internally inconsistent fuzzy judgments that skirt the core issue - or distort the issue into something that it is not - hurts America.
There can be little dispute that every minority that attends Michigan's Law School will indeed have an invisible asterisk after their name and the footnote will be that they may not REALLY have earned their position at the school by merit but by virtue of their genitalia or skin color. They have to wonder about this. They have to ask themselves, "did I REALLY achieve something or was it given to me? Did I EARN the job or was it GIVEN to me to satisfy a minority quota?"
Next diatribe.... "diversity".
