JWR Jeff JacobyBen WattenbergTony Snow
Mona CharenDr. Laura
Linda Chavez

Paul Greenberg Larry ElderJonathan S. Tobin
Thomas SowellMUGGERWalter Williams
Don FederCal Thomas
Political Cartoons
Left, Right & Center

Click on banner ad to support JWR

Jewish World Review Feb. 19, 1999 /3 Adar, 5759

Mona Charen

Mona Charen

Depends what you
mean by "acting"

(JWR) --- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com) WHAT IF KENNETH STARR AND THE REPUBLICANS had included the across-the-board lawlessness of this administration in their indictment of the president?

Might they have received a more respectful hearing from the public? We'll never know, but now comes more evidence of it.

President Clinton is seeking to reappoint Bill Lann Lee as assistant attorney general for civil rights. In the fall of 1997, the president nominated Lee for the post, only to see his nomination fail in the Senate. But in violation of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, President Clinton gave him the job anyway. Lee is called "acting," but everyone knows that this is a mere fig leaf to avoid Senate confirmation. Someone should ask the president about this, though he may say it depends on how you define "acting."

Lee
In his 14 months in office, Lee, with the full resources of the Justice Department, has pursued exactly the policies this administration has claimed it does not favor: racial preferences in education, government contracting, employment and voting.

Perhaps the next battle over Lee's nomination will shed some light on the fact that this administration and most of the educational institutions in the country, as well as many state and local governments, have been flouting the law on racial classifications for some time.

Here is a typical scenario: A student applies to college or graduate school and is rejected. Soon thereafter, he discovers that a classmate whose test scores and grades were significantly lower than his own was accepted by the same institution. Is that legal? The Center for Individual Rights (1-202-833-8400) wants that student to know that it is not and has accordingly published two slim pamphlets -- one for students and the other for university trustees -- explicating the law.

Most Americans have no idea that naked racial preferences are illegal. Those who have studied the history of civil rights legislation recall that Sen. Hubert Humphrey promised to eat the Civil Rights Act of 1964, page by page, if it were ever interpreted as permitting racial quotas or reverse discrimination. The happy warrior died before having to make good on that promise. But as everyone knows, reverse discrimination did become the order of the day and remains so.

Yet discriminating on the basis of race -- even for the apparently noble purpose of remedying past societal discrimination against certain groups or to achieve racial diversity -- is flatly illegal and has been for 20 years, since the Supreme Court decided the Bakke case.

Justice Lewis Powell's opinion in that case, in which he allowed that race could be a "plus factor" when otherwise equally qualified candidates were vying for the same spot, has been twisted beyond recognition to permit every kind of quota and set-aside.

A college or university, the CIR informs us, is not permitted to set aside a particular number of slots in its classes for particular racial groups in order to compensate for "societal" discrimination or even to achieve "diversity." Set-asides are a lawful remedy only if the institution itself discriminated in the past. As Justice Powell wrote: "If petitioner's purpose is to assure within its student body some specified percentage of a particular group merely because of its race or ethnic origin, such a preferential purpose must be rejected ... (as) discrimination for its own sake. This the Constitution forbids."

In the first year after the University of Texas Law School abandoned its preferential admissions program for blacks and others, minority enrollment plummeted, and there were dire predictions in the press of a return to "lily white" schools. But in the year following, minority enrollment rebounded. Ending preferences does not end higher education for minorities.

Proponents of quotas and preferences believe fervently that they are pro-minorities whereas those who believe in strict colorblindness are anti-minorities. The most eloquent reply to this prejudice was offered by Justice Antonin Scalia in the 1995 case of Adarand vs. Pena: "To pursue the concept of racial entitlement -- even for the most admirable and benign of purposes -- is to reinforce and preserve for future mischief the way of thinking that produced race slavery, race privilege and race hatred. In the eyes of government, we are just one race here. It is American."

Up

2/17/99:As Minn., goes so goes the nation?
2/09/99:Prepare for post-impeachment spin
2/03/99:Teaching morality
2/01/99: What did he say?
1/26/99: The truth about the Peace Process
1/22/99: The vulgar decade
1/19/99: Was Jefferson libeled by DNA?
1/13/99: The backlash picks up speed
1/11/99: Who invented politics of personal destruction?
1/07/99: Shall we dance?
1/05/99: Try him!
12/30/98:The price of virtue
12/28/98: The gift of giving
12/22/98: Party of shame, party of shamelessness
12/18/98: Wag the country
12/16/98: Is this impeachment constitutional?
12/14/98: Republicans find courage
12/09/98: Nappy Hair and other racial slurs
12/07/98: Stranger in a strange land
12/02/98: Dangerous ground
11/30/98: Involuntary fatherhood?
11/24/98: Lies, damned lies, and sex lies
11/18/98: Another victory for cowardice
11/16/98: Separatism plus welfarism equals a dead end
11/10/98: Did conservatism lose campaign '98?
11/06/98: Democrat venality, Republican timidity
11/04/98: Are girls being shortchanged?
11/02/98: Believe the children?
10/28/98: What 'Measure 58' would do
10/26/98: The officers are bailing out
10/20/98: Using Matthew Shepard's murder
10/19/98: The school voucher that saved a family
10/14/98: Are powerful women different?
10/09/98: Can just sex be impeachable?
10/07/98: Repeal Miranda
10/02/98: Understanding the polls
10/01/98: What school texts teach about marriage
9/28/98: Fear of choice
9/23/98: A fork in the road: Bubba's fate and ours
9/18/98: Christianity and the Holocaust
9/16/98: The national dirty joke
9/11/98: Are we in crisis?
9/09/98: Does Burton's sin let Clinton off the hook?
9/07/98: Liar's Poker
9/01/98: One, two, three
8/28/98: Fat and folly
8/25/98: When homework is a dirty word
8/21/98: The unravelling
8/18/98: The wages of dishonesty
8/17/98: Sex, honor and the presidency
8/12/98: Pro-choice extremist
8/10/98: Switch illuminates biology's role
8/05/98: The presumption of innocence and the American way
8/03/98: An American hero
7/29/98: Lock up those who need psychiatric care
7/24/98: Making the military more like us
7/22/98: The 'Net sex hoax... and us
7/20/98: Disappointed by Cosbys
7/15/98: Feelings, not morality, rule
7/10/98: Guns as the solution?
7/8/98: Teacher preacher
7/6/98: The China behind the headlines
7/1/98: What is the First Amendment for?
6/26/98: The Republican city
6/24/98: Poison pen
6/22/98: Clinton: inventing his own reality?
6/16/98: Senator mom?
6/12/98: Wisconsin: a trail blazer?
6/9/98: These girls say no to sex, yes to excellence
6/5/98: Lewinsky's ex-lawyer would feel right at home as Springer guest
6/2/98: English? Si; Republican? No!
5/29/98: The truth about women and work
5/27/98: Romance in the '90s
5/25/98:Taxing smokers for fun and profit
5/19/98: China's friend in the White House
5/15/98: Look out feminists: here comes the true backlash
5/12/98: The war process?
5/8/98: Where's daddy?
5/5/98: The joys of boys
5/1/98: Republicans move on education reform
4/28/98: Reagan was right
4/24/98: The key to Pol Pot
4/21/98: The patriot's channel
4/19/98: Child-care day can't replace mom
4/15/98: Tax time
4/10/98: Armey states obvious, gets clobbered
4/7/98: A nation complacent?
4/1/98: Bill Clinton's African adventure
3/27/98: Understanding Arkansas
3/24/98: Jerry Springer's America
3/20/98: A small step for persecuted minorities
3/17/98: Skeletons in every closet?
3/13/98: Clinton's idea of a fine judge
3/10/98: Better than nothing?
3/6/98: Of fingernails and freedom
3/3/98: Read JWR! :0)
2/27/98: Dumb and Dumber
2/24/98: Reagan reduced poverty more than Clinton
2/20/98: Rally Round the United Nations?
2/17/98: In Denial
2/13/98: Reconsidering Theism
2/10/98: Waiting for the facts?
2/8/98: Cat got the GOP's tongue?
2/2/98: Does America care about immorality?
1/30/98: How to judge Clinton's denials
1/27/98: What If It's Just the Sex?
1/23/98: Bill Clinton, Acting Guilty
1/20/98: Arafat and the Holocaust Museum
1/16/98: Child Care or Feminist Agenda?
1/13/98: What We Really Think of Abortion
1/9/98: The Dead Era of Budget Deficits Rises Again?
1/6/98: "Understandable" Murder and Child Custody
1/2/98: Majoring in Sex
12/30/97: The Spirit of Kwanzaa
12/26/97: Food fights (Games children play)
12/23/97: Does Clinton's race panel listen to facts?
12/19/97: Welcome to the Judgeocracy, where the law school elite overrules majority rule
12/16/97: Do America's Jews support Netanyahu?


©1998, Creators Syndicate, Inc.