by Hugh Murray
It was good to see that America's High Court finally took another look at affirmative action policy. My views are clear - for every one who is aided through affirmative action, another person is hurt by its related negative action. I see it as racist, sexist, ethnist, helping one race at the expense of another; helping one sex at the expense of the other, etc. I was involved in the early days of the civil rights movement, and then the demand was for equal rights for all citizens, for what Pres. John Kennedy said in his speech on the subject that our Constitution was color-blind, and what Martin Luther King, Jr. declared at the March on Washington in 1963 about judging people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. Affirmative action is the denial of all that. It rejects the color-blind approach, and demands that people be treated differently depending on their race, ethnicity, sex, etc.
Some are pleased by some of the comments by members of the Supreme Court in the presentation of the cases by the attorneys on both sides. I am pleased to hear such judges criticize the policy. As in 2003 major corporations will submit friend of court briefs urging continuance of affirmative action. So has the high brass of the US military, contending diversity is our strength and universities must continue affirmative action so the military may have people of color officers. This occurred in 2003 when the issue was previously before the court.
My point in this posting - even if we win, even if the Supreme Court declares affirmative action un-Constitutional, it will not be the end of the struggle for equal rights. Over the past decades, the believers in quotas, in diversity, in affirmative action, have been hired in every personnel office, every human resources office, and their purpose was to impose quotas. Will they quite because of mere Supreme Court decision? Of course not. They will rally their base, especially the unqualified students admitted to universities, the unqualified workers hired and promoted because of these policies. This empire of the ill-qualified exists throughout America, ready tp defend its turf.
The military. During WWII, the armed services were generally segregated. It has sometimes been called the greatest generation. The American armed services certainly did their part in Europe, and led the victory over Japan in the East. After WWII, the American armed services became diverse. After WWII, America stopped winning wars.
Eleanor Holmes Norton led the fight agaisnt objective testing (on which blacks and Hispanics often did poorly as groups) Most such exams were banned by judicial decrees as "racist" in that they showed the real abilities of the exam takers. Norton pressed for lower standards, tests that almost everyone could pass, and then the government could force hiring by quota. Norton said all the new hires would be "basically qualified." But they would NOT be the BEST QUALIFIED. So the American workforce has become ever more mediocre in a more competitive world. Why not return to seek the best, not the bottom of the barrel?
Even if we win in the Supreme Court. all the commissars of diversity will still have jobs, with one intent, restoring racist, racial favoritism for their particular group. Their main job is to insure that the lesser qualified, the ill qualified, and the unqualified are hired, promoted, admitted to university, awarded scholarships, etc. The truly qualified minorities will be admitted without them. The positions of the diversity officers will be on the line. Expect protests, rallies, violence - a long and dirty fight. We must fight them for equal rights and the promotion of the best, the best worker, the best student, the best for America.
