|
The Hot News About Affirmative Action
By Jennifer Millman
January 08, 2007
What's next for Michigan? Affirmative
action--yes or no? Did Gerald Ford really support civil rights? This week's top
affirmative-action news has bloggers asking these questions and more. What are
they saying? Like most things, it depends on whom you ask.
What's Next for Michigan?
What happened? A federal court ordered Michigan universities
to stop using affirmative action immediately, lifting a six-month
injunction of the voter-approved ban imposed by a lower court. One
pro-affirmative-action group says it will appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme
Court, but skeptics say their case won't hold ground.
What's in the blogs?
Many bloggers
support the federal court's decision, citing the 58 percent majority of
Michigan
voters (most of whom were white) who approved the affirmative-action ban. One
blogger submits it would be hypocritical to allow the injunction, quoting the
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, which another blogger
claims is "the real hypocrisy." Read
more.
JMK, a self-professed
"working-class conservative" and FDNY firefighter, mocks Michigan universities'
efforts to delay the affirmative-action ban. He says the primary problem with
affirmative action is it's rooted in "presumed incompetence," which he believes
is racism in its purest form. Read
more.
Affirmative Action: Yes or No?
What happened? Long-time affirmative-action foe Ward Connerly recently was
invited to speak before Wisconsin's special legislative committee on
affirmative action, which has intensified national debate over its
utility.
What's in the blogs? Inviting Ward Connerly to speak at an affirmative-action hearing
is like asking a KKK Grand Wizard to speak before a committee on race relations,
opines Joel McNally. He claims the United States was founded on
affirmative action for whites, albeit not federalized, and cites President Bush
as a beneficiary. Read
more.
Did anything positive come of Connerly's visit to Wisconsin? Not only does
one blogger say yes, he calls Connerly's appearance a "stroke of good fortune."
Why? In a sarcastic invective condemning a pro-affirmative-action Wisconsin representative, Dan Kenitz calls for an end to
"racial preferences." Why? Because "separate means unequal." Read
more.
Another blogger denounces the anti-affirmative-action movement as
a thinly veiled attempt to sustain white supremacy. While Connerly substantiates
his efforts by espousing concern for "reverse discrimination," this blogger
catches him on a vital point. There's no evidence, and Connerly knows it.
Read
more. As James Collier points out in his blog Acting
White, affirmative-action programs are needed to remedy past discrimination, but
the negative press surrounding the term sets its beneficiaries up to
fail. Read
more.
Gerald Ford and Civil Rights
What happened? Everyone remembers Gerald Ford as the only president never
elected, the man who helped the nation recover after Watergate and withdrew the
last troops from Vietnam. Where did Ford stand on
civil rights? He's an affirmative-action supporter who opposed busing to achieve
school integration. (See also:
Affirmative-Action Supporter Gerald Ford Dies at 93)
What's in the blogs? Some bloggers are wondering how he aligned these contradictory
viewpoints, while others argue they're not contradictory at all.
Affirmative-action foes blame the "left wing" for attempting to frame Ford's
legacy around civil rights--a subject they claim was a minimal priority on his
presidential agenda.
One blogger writes, "The American dream was never intended for
black people to enjoy, and Ford maintained the status quo by approving
initiatives that benefited white people, and kept white privilege alive."
Read
more.
Jeffrey Toobin, an Amherst Times writer, reminds the public that
Ford was responsible for the amicus brief submitted by retired military officers
in the 2003 University of Michigan cases--prose from which Sandra Day O'Connor
adopted in her majority decision. This writer claims this brief, which Ford set
in motion, may have been the most influential in the history of the Supreme
Court. Read
more.
|
DiversityInc Bookstore |
|
|
When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America
Author, Ira Katznelson, demonstrates that all the key programs passed during the New Deal and Fair Deal era of the 1930s and 1940s were created in a deeply discriminatory manner. This was no accident.
For More Information |
More from Today's Diversity News
NEXT ITEM >>
Send Your Comments About This Article Now
©DiversityInc. Reproduction in any format is absolutely prohibited.
|
digg this | 
mixx! | 
reddit
del.icio.us
Newsvine
