Well, I can see the Mayberry Machiavellis sitting around gaming this one out, and someone saying, "Hey, let's use Condi for cover. Hell, isn't what black Republicans are for?"

January 18, 2003

Bush Adviser Backs Use of Race in College Admissions
By NEIL A. LEWIS - NYTimes

WASHINGTON -— Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser and the highest ranking African-American in the White House, said today that she believed universities should be able to use race as a factor in admissions policies, a view that may put her at odds with Mr. Bush....

Oh well!

Trent Lott, where are you when we need you. Duh.

The way they handled it makes them look a lot more Mayberry than Machiavelli, with Rice undercutting the initial spin. One would assume the aides who floated the story would have lost credibility with the White House press corps, who presumably know their names.

I look forward to the press working its way up to the same openly suspicious attitude they showed to the Clinton administration and the Gore campaign.

The way they handled it makes them look a lot more Mayberry than Machiavelli, with Rice undercutting the initial spin. One would assume the aides who floated the story would have lost credibility with the White House press corps, who presumably know their names.

I look forward to the press working its way up to the same openly suspicious attitude they showed to the Clinton administration and the Gore campaign.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said during Bush's campaign that he hoped the University of Michigan would prevail in the case, and copies of his comments are being used by some university officials to build support for their policies. Powell told WJR-AM in Detroit in September 2000 that he thinks affirmative action "is still necessary."
"I will continue to speak out for it," he said, according to a transcript from Video Monitoring Services of America. "There is a case now pending, of course, with the University of Michigan that I hope the university wins."

By my read -- other interpretations are possible -- the White House brief is intended to have approximately zero effect in the legal sphere, while conveying a message of support to retro-racists in the political sphere.

Having it both ways, as it were.

I wonder if this is another case of the 'Glenn Hubbard Effect'. Perhaps, in the past,
Condi has wound up publically supporting
Bush/Rove positions which she actually opposed.
And now, the White House just assumed she'd
go along with it, and made false claims.

The Administration supreme court brief was more limited in scope than the President's remarks suggested.

January 17, 2003

White House Briefs Take Cautious Stand in Race Case
By LINDA GREENHOUSE - NYTimes

WASHINGTON -— As an example of political stage-management, the Bush administration's handling of its Supreme Court brief in the Michigan affirmative action case was masterly, impressive even by the standards of a White House unusually skilled at spin control.

By denouncing the University of Michigan's race-conscious admission policies in a late-afternoon live television appearance on Wednesday, President Bush was able to dominate an entire 24-hour news cycle with an image of strong opposition to affirmative action.

It was the message his core conservative supporters most wanted to hear and one calculated to put an end to the growing carping from the right that the brief would not be tough enough.

So by the time his solicitor general, Theodore B. Olson, actually submitted the administration's briefs late tonight as the clock approached a midnight filing deadline at the court, the briefs were a fading second-day story and there was hardly anyone still on duty — certainly not the television news anchors — to notice that the reality of its legal argument diverged substantially from the rhetoric of the president's prime-time statement.

True to his promise, the briefs did ask the court to declare unconstitutional the undergraduate and law school admissions programs in dispute. But it did so by means of a legal analysis that, far from insisting that any consideration of race was impermissible, did not even ask the justices to overturn the Bakke decision, the 1978 landmark ruling that by allowing race to be used as a "plus factor" ushered in a generation of affirmative action in public and private college admissions.

It was as if the administration had filed a brief denouncing abortion without asking the court to overturn Roe v. Wade....

Funny - Catch up the Administration on any issue and the response is President Clinton-Senator Clinton made them do it. Republicans, Republicans everywhere, but the Clintons made them do it. Perhaps a balanced approach to issues such as affirmative action was a reason that the Clintons have been so strongly supported by African-Americans.

Jim Miller on 2002-12-12: "I have not posted on Trent Lott yet, not because I am avoiding the subject of his foolish comments at the Thurmond birthday party, but because I am trying to think of the right way to present my thoughts, which are complex. More when I have it sorted out to my own satisfaction."

Complex thought-sort still in progress ... processing ... processing ... processing ...

Speaking of the Democrats--the following item should be of interest. Mike Snow's lawn sign is a true eye opener:

“NRO has obtained a photo of a lawn sign distributed by Mike Snow's campaign and stuck on lawns all over Walker County and paid for by the Georgia House Democratic Caucus (for all intents and purposes, the money is from the Georgia Democratic party).

The sign, which displays the old Georgia state flag (two-thirds of which is the Confederate battle flag), reads: "Mike Voted To Keep Our Flag … Let's Vote To Keep Mike!"”

http://www.nationalreview.com/maserati/maserati011703.asp

Trent Lott's comments lauding a racist campaign for the Presidency by Strom Thurmond were far more than "foolish." The comments were foolish since they cost Senate leadership. More importantly the comments were a mark of racist sentiment that should be long absent from our national leadership.

Topic drift seems excessive here...

Brad DeLong

Back to the topic -

The President's discussion on affirmative action complained of a use of quotas and opts for a "neutral" policy to generate racial opportunity for school admissions. Texas law allows for admission of the top 10% of students from each high school in the state to attend the University of Texas. Since schools still tend to have high single-ethnic concentrations, Hispanic and African-American students are being fairly well represented in undergraduate admissions.

My concern is that such a mechanical way around affirmative action may mean that deserving students of any ethnicity in more competitive schools may be easily overlooked. The need for affirmative action rather than any strictly mechanical admissions policy is to allow admissions officers to be able produce ethnic diversity of deserving students on campus even when a mechanical standard falls short of allowing opportunity.

The President's plan would also not seem to apply to graduate school admissions, for a mechanical procedure would not seem to suffice to promote diversity.

If I may respond to a topic-drift post which is still up, this is the second time that I have heard about the Democrat Mike Snow's neo-Confederate appeal. Do I condemn it? Yes. Why didn't I condemn it before the National Review told me about it? Because, living in Oregon, I don't follow the politics of the Georgia legistlature.

Do I think that most neo-Confederates are Democrats like Snow? No, as everyone knows, most of them left the Democratic Party in the Sixties and afterward to become Republicans. Do I think that this issue was raised in good faith? Not really.

“Texas law allows for admission of the top 10% of students from each high school in the state to attend the University of Texas.”

Ever heard of someone being a big frog in a small pond? The problem is that some Texas schools are so inferior that their top 10% graduates are still unable to do the work required ot the university level. Also, let’s be blunt. We are not talking about all minority students when discussing affirmative action policies. Oriental students have no problem competing for their place in the sun.

I have no problem with sometimes giving the nudge to a minority student---if everything else is equal. It is the selection of an inferior candidate that cannot be rationally and morally justified.

Affirmative action programs need to focus on families and individuals within ethnic groups. "Asian children" include vastly different children whose families have at some point immigrated from Asia. Chinese-Americans may be from mainland China or Hong Kong or Taiwan. They are not Japanese-Americans and not Laotion-Americans or Cambodian-Americans or Vietnamese-Americans. Samoans are American citizens as are Puerto Ricans. Ethnicity is a complex matter, as is the need for aid to provide opportunity to children of different ethnic origins who would otherwise lack opportunity.

Jack Balkin, a Yale Law First-Amendment scholar has a post up about why the ten percent solution isn't colorblind. And a follow-up. (And you should read his whole blog, which is quite new and has some interesting copyright stuff as well--but I drift....)

Balkin points out that the 10% plan is race-conscious--its goal is to increase enrollment of underrepresented racial groups. Admittedly, it doesn't explicitly mention race, but the Supreme Court has never taken explicit mention of race to be significant. Whether or not a law or policy mentions race, it is illegal if it can be shown to have a racially discriminatory purpose.

Balkin doesn't mention grandfather clauses, but I will. Didn't mention race--kept black people from voting--were intended that way--unconstitutional.

So not only is the ten percent plan messier than straightforward affirmative action, it is on no better legal ground than straightforward affirmative action (which both Balkin and I support). At least so says Balkin, the law professor--I'm not a lawyer, so any flaws in the argument are due to Balkin. :-)

(Incidentally, did anyone else notice that you can get about 18 points on the Michigan admissions if you went to a good high school with AP classes?)

Oriental students have no problem competing for their place in the sun.

Immigrants from Asia came over voluntarily.

Oh, and the real problem with the "top 10% of gradutes" thing in Texas is that it actually encourages segregated high schools - everyone will bail from schools with large asian populations, for one thing.

“Immigrants from Asia came over voluntarily.”

So what? This point is of little relevance. Also, this sort of excuse making wastes everybody’s time. Blacks in America must confront the overwhelming illegitimacy crisis and the rampant anti-intellectualism. Far too many black males are discouraged from studying because their cohorts accuse them of “acting white.” The immature Liberals didn’t listen to Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Edward Banfield some thirty years ago. Thus, our nation today must pay the price. Harvard University, it behooves me to mention, totally disgraced itself during the Banfield affair.

“Oh, and the real problem with the "top 10% of graduates" thing in Texas is that it actually encourages segregated high schools - everyone will bail from schools with large asian populations, for one thing.”

Are you really saying that “everyone will bail from schools with large asian populations?”

That is so silly. Who told you such such nonsense?

In my experience, Affirmative Action programs at Ivy League colleges do take into account different experiences among different Asian-American ethnicities. Americans of Cambodian or Hmong background are candidates for Affirmative Action while those whose families have roots in Japan, Taiwan, or South Korea are generally excluded.

David, imagine that you're a black high school student moving to Texas, and you have the choice of the following school districts, which provide an equal quality education:

1) A school district with 100% asian population.
2) A school district with 100% white population.
2) A school district with 100% black population.

Imagine that you can only afford to go to a in-state college, but you're not sure you'll get in. You also know that asian student populations tend to score higher than whites, who tend to score higher than blacks. What do you do?

If you're maximizing your chances of getting in to college, you move to the 100% black school district to maximize your chance of getting the guarenteed slot, and you definitely avoid the 100% asian district. Throw in the known preference of white familes not to relocate to majority black school districts, and there you go, the system defacto supports segregated schools.

Also, the *only* way the ten percent plan can have an affirmative action-style effect is if schools are highly segregated. If all schools were evenly mixed, then (statistically) all the guarenteed slots would go to asian students, who are, after all, statistically the highest performers. Is this really the outcome people were looking for?

After all, Bush & company say that this plan helps blacks. Maybe they haven't thought it through. Maybe they're being disingenous.

“Immigrants from Asia came over voluntarily.”

So what? This point is of little relevance

So you're telling me the net effect of stealing 200 years of labor and capital from black "immigrants", and that this was not done for asian immigrants, has no relevance?

Jason, do you ever bother to think about the numbers you post?

>> Also, the *only* way the ten percent plan can have an affirmative action-style effect is if schools are highly segregated. If all schools were evenly mixed, then (statistically) all the guarenteed slots would go to asian students, who are, after all, statistically the highest performers. <<

For this to be true, 1. Asian students would have to be at least ten percent of the population, and they are not.

2. Even if 1, were true, you're talking about averages, meaning some asians are below average. And some blacks and whites are above average.

Ok, the asian population of Texas is 2.7%, and the black population is 11.5%

Neither change the fundamental point of the argument: to maximize your chances of getting the guarenteed slot, all other things being equal, you should go to the school with the statistically lowest performing student body. All other things being equal, you'd go to the poorest, rural, most black district you could find.

If racism didn't exist, this wouldn't be an issue; everyone would move around until the system stabilized on roughly a population proportional basis in each school. But lingering racial issues keep whites from moving to majority black districts, so the plan defacto encourages segregated school districts.