Tag: race preferences

Does The Detroit News need treatment for this disorder? Well, read this blurb from today's editorial praising yesterday's Supreme Court decision that ruled against treating job applicants differently based on their race:

"Treating people differently on the basis of their race is both illegal and simply wrong. It's an easily understood concept...-- and the principle that racial discrimination is impermissible has been usefully reinforced."

Okay, now read what the same editorial staff wrote about the 2006 Michigan Civil Rights Initiative to ban race preferences in government hiring, contracting and university admissions:

"It's not a civil rights measure, far from it. It's a despicable piece of work aimed at blocking legal efforts to bring equality to the state's campuses. It ought to be soundly defeated."

But at least The Detroit News was consistent before the passage of MCRI. Here's what they said about California businessman Ward Connerly when Connerly was considering helping Jennifer Gratz, a bunch of young activists, and I launch MCRI back on July 8, 2003. Their editorial's headline was:

"So far, he's (Connerely) received a cold shoulder from state Republicans, whom he hoped to enlist in the campaign. The GOP rightly sees the potential for an affirmative action ballot initiative to further divide the state along racial lines and reverse the gains the party is making among African-Americans and other minorities.

It's not clear what Connerly hopes to accomplish...the divide in understanding between whites and blacks remains wide. Toss in a ballot campaign that pits the two races against each other and all hope for finally closing that divide will be lost."
(emphasis mine)

The Court's decision confirms the principle that everybody is entitled to be treated equally by their government. Every single human being has that civil right - even citizens whose ethnicity is disfavored by politicians or governments.

Michigan voters helped reaffirm that principle when they passed the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative ballot proposal in 2006 that amended the Michigan Constitution to prohibit government racial preferences. Last week, the Arizona legislature placed a nearly identical measure on that state's 2010 ballot.

This ruling is a further sign that America is moving toward race neutrality and fairness (though still too slowly). Equal treatment of each person regardless of their ethnicity is EVERYBODY'S civil right.

Equality must be upheld as a fundamental American value, more so than governmental-engineered `diversity'. Diversity is good, but not at the expense of peoples' civil right to equality under the law.

Despite President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the heyday of the `race industry' is past.