From Civil Rights to ‘Diversity’ ‘Race has no place in American life or law,’ JFK said. It’s time to recover that ideal. By Ward Connerly
In a nation where the issue of race never seems to be fully settled, we are again confronted with the question of what to do about affirmative action. America is dedicated to the proposition that each of us is equal at birth and constitutionally entitled to be treated equally by our government. We enshrined that right as the 14th Amendment. But the spirit of fairness sometimes compels us to take a detour from our foundational principles in the name of becoming a more perfect union.
America has come a long way since 1939, when I was born in Jim Crow Louisiana. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925, which required federal contractors to take “affirmative action” to ensure that employees wouldn’t be discriminated against because of race, creed, color or national origin. It wasn’t meant to discriminate against formerly favored groups. “Race has no place in American life or law,” JFK said.
Martin Luther King Jr. believed Kennedy’s order was insufficient to achieve integration, and he lobbied President Lyndon B. Johnson to strengthen affirmative action. After Congress passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, LBJ signed Executive Order 11246 on Sept. 24, 1965, firmly establishing that nondiscrimination in employment would be the law of our land.
Yet this strategy to prevent discrimination ended up driving discrimination against whites and Asians in education—all in the name of “diversity.” That’s a word I rarely heard before I began my 12-year term as a regent of the University of California in 1993, but I heard repeatedly until my departure in 2005. It wasn’t a description but a goal, something we were expected to make a conscious effort to “build.”
As I delved into this new world of building diversity, it became apparent that given the profound disparities in academic achievement, diversity could be achieved only by applying different standards. Wasn’t that discrimination—a violation of the 14th Amendment?
In Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), the Supreme Court answered no, and nearly every select university in the nation breathed easier. The justices reaffirmed that the pursuit of diversity was a “compelling state interest,” so long as race was only “one of many factors” used to evaluate applicants.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor expressed the hope that in 25 years the use of racial preferences would no longer be necessary to achieve diversity. It isn’t 2028 yet, but the justices plan to reconsider Grutter in their next term.
Let’s hope they agree with the people of California and eight other states who have voted for ballot measures that declare “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.”
That’s a clear, direct, and unequivocal expression of everyone’s right to be treated as a full citizen, not a fractional one. I want that for my fellow Americans who are of Asian descent or white just as much as I want it for those of us who are black or Hispanic.
Mr. Connerly is president of the American Civil Rights Institute.
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