Posted on: Monday, November 22, 2004

SECOND OPINION

By Cliff Slater

Those who favor Akaka bill might study new book

Anyone believing that legislation conferring special benefits on racial groups, such as the Akaka bill, can work well should read Thomas Sowell's new book, "Affirmative Action Around the World."

He finds that in country after country, including the United States, not only does such legislation not achieve its original goals but, far worse, the politicizing of ethnic group disparities exacerbates interracial dissension.

Sowell, a distinguished Hoover Institution economist, is black and began his academic career in a Harlem public school. But, as he says, Harlem schools in the 1940s were then far better than they are today.

Sowell spells out how race-conscious programs can actually harm blacks and complains that while the intent of such legislation is to improve the lot of the less fortunate, the supposed benefits are only assumed and never tested or demonstrated. He says, "Affirmative action in the United States has made blacks look like peoples who owe their rise to affirmative action and other government programs. It has been carefully cultivated by black politicians and civil rights leaders so as to solidify a constituency conditioned to be dependent on them, as well as on government."

For example, he points out that blacks were improving their condition at a faster rate before the 1964 Civil Rights Act than they did afterward, including increasing their employment in high-level positions.

As long ago as the late 1800s, blacks had higher rates of labor-force participation than whites, and slightly higher rates of marriage. And blacks, by their own efforts, had cut their poverty rate in half before there was any affirmative action while some black schools in the past had outperformed white schools.

Then in 1964, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act, which made it illegal "to discriminate against any individual with respect to his employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin."

However, the Supreme Court, with Justice William J. Brennan writing the majority opinion, subsequently rejected "a literal interpretation of the words" Congress had explicitly approved, claiming that the "spirit" of the Civil Rights Act had, as its primary concern, the economic problems of blacks. Justice William J. Rehnquist, writing for the minority, disagreed, opining that the logic used was Houdini-like in trying to escape the clear language of Congress.

This decision opened the doors to racial quotas and other forms of "affirmative action" (the British more honestly call it "positive discrimination").

One result has been that the bar has been lowered to allow more blacks into elite universities by admitting many that would not normally qualify. However, the bar has not been lowered for graduation. This has resulted in a disproportionate number of blacks failing at elite schools whereas they would have succeeded in schools that matched their abilities.

A new UCLA study shortly to be published in the Stanford Law Review agrees with Sowell that blacks would have significantly higher graduation rates were they matched with appropriate schools — as are most non-minority students.

While integration was the goal, affirmative action has tended to resegregate. Even academically strong black students get tarred with the brush of being "quota" students while having weaker students in elite schools has led to the development of black studies programs.

As Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has said, "universities ... talk the talk of multiculturalism and racial diversity in the courts but walk the walk of tribalism and racial segregation on their campuses — through minority-only student organizations, separate minority housing opportunities, separate minority student centers, even separate minority-only graduation ceremonies."

Interestingly, it is the black conservatives, virtually all of whom had an impoverished upbringing, who are objecting to such policies as significantly harmful to blacks. It is the black middle and upper classes, those born to success, that are the backbone of the civil rights industry.

While we can only hint at the richness of Sowell's book, those favoring race-conscious legislation should read it and ponder its findings.

Cliff Slater is a regular columnist whose footnoted columns are at: www.lava.net/cslater.