SUPREME COURT GETS IT, COURANT DOES NOT by Tim Siggia

SUPREME COURT GETS IT COURANT DOES NOT

By Tim Siggia

July 03, 2007

In a time in which Bush bashing has pretty much become the national pastime on both the left and right sides of the political aisle, George W. can yet point to at least one thing he did right that will have a lasting effect on our country for some time to come: his resoluteness in backing the right people for Supreme Court appointments -- though, admittedly, he nearly blew it with the Harriet Miers nomination and had to be saved from himself by his conservative backers. Nevertheless, the two jurists who found their way to the Supreme Court bench during the two Bush administrations have decidedly changed the face of an institution which up to that point had been doggedly liberal even during the Reagan years. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, with the support of the swing votes provided by Justice Anthony Kennedy, have made the weight of their presence felt most recently in what resulted in a 5-4 decision that race should not be a factor in college admissions. The decision came as a blow to champions of affirmative action, and a positive step forward toward ending what in fact has been counter-discrimination by means of race-based preferences.

In his majority statement, Roberts said that the way to stop discrimination is to stop discriminating. One would think such a statement would stand on its own merit, and not require further explanation. However, this proved to be too much for the liberal Hartford Courant, which, in its usual fashion, gave its liberal slant to the story by providing commentary from a conveniently ready panel of "experts". Though it is blatantly obvious to anyone who seriously follows current events, it nevertheless must be pointed out that the word "expert" is without a doubt one of the most overused -- and abused -- terms in journalism. It is, in most cases, arbitrarily assigned and so done without qualification. News writers never bother to tell readers just what makes one an expert in any field -- where the line is drawn, for instance, between expertise and mere competence -- or what qualifications anyone possesses to merit citation as an expert. Rather, the reader is expected to take the reporter's word as axiomatic.

Naturally, of the five "experts" quoted by the Hartford Courant, all just happened to be of liberal persuasion. There was not even one token conservative for the liberals to beat up on in their usual fashion, unless it might be said that the conservatives in question were the four Supreme Court justices who had already spoken their piece with their rulings. Interestingly (and predictably) enough, one of those "experts" cited was Noel Cazenave, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut who teaches, among other subjects, a course of his own creation entitled, "White Racism". As part of this course, Cazenave asserts that racism takes only one form: that there is, in fact, no such thing as black racism, despite all evidence to the contrary. His course is predicated on the premise that, in Cazenave's words, "America is racist to the core."

To be fair, I have never attended UConn, let alone taken Dr. Cazenave's course. What I know about it I have learned from reading the Hartford Courant's accounts back in the '90s. That, however, was enough to get a fair idea of what the course was all about.

As if this weren't enough, Courant columnist Stan Simpson weighed in on the issue, with dire proclamations of the consequences of ignoring race in college admissions. All put together, Simpson and the assorted "experts" all seem to agree that the Supreme Court, with its most recent ruling, has set America back to the days of Jim Crow with regard to college admissions.

What we have here is the usual muddying of the waters liberals always seem to engage in when it comes to any issue that should be obvious. In this case it is that college admissions should be based on merit -- nothing else. And here I'm afraid I'm going to ruffle the feathers of those on athletic scholarships, but what has to be the top consideration is the answer to the question, will this student most likely succeed or fail if admitted to said institution of higher learning? The only real consideration here should be the grade-point average -- period. Not the ability to play football or basketball, and certainly not race. If we are to live in a truly color-blind society, we cannot make exceptions for the sake of political correctness.

In the workplace outside of college there are already too many examples of affirmative action gone awry. One is in my very own place of work, where we have had several examples of managers who would not have become managers were it not for affirmative action programs. Great, say the liberals, that's what it's all about: giving the underdog a chance to realize his true potential! Not so fast, already. In two out of three cases (and I have no doubt the third will follow the same path), those managers, who were obviously selected because of their race, were in fact put into jobs which they obviously were not qualified. When their incompetence became so blatant that it could no longer be ignored, top management was faced with a sticky choice: either fire the incompetent manager or demote him, either of which action would most likely resulted in a discrimination suit. Therefore, a third choice was decided on: give the manager in question an invented, make-work job with a fancy title and an inflated salary, a job that looked important, sounded important, seemed important, and wasn't important. No, I am not making this up. I saw it happen in at least two cases.

Now before some of you begin depicting me in a sheet and a hood, let me say exactly where I stand on race, and what, I believe, is and always has been the conservative position. No one, repeat no one, should be held back because of being black, Asian, Hispanic, American Indian, or of any other race or ethnic entity. Each and every one of us deserves a chance to become everything we are capable of becoming. However, neither should anyone either be admitted to college or promoted at work because of his race or ethnic identity. To me, this is nothing more and nothing less than pure, simple, fairness. However, it is also obvious that not everyone agrees with me on this, and if my kind of thinking makes me a bigot, a racist, and all the other epithets leftists like to hurl at those of us on the right, well then perhaps I am, in the words, of Noel Cazenave, "racist to the core".