The fear is palpable among preferentists in Michigan of what would happen if citizens are allowed to vote on the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative’s proposal to outlaw racial preferences.
Indeed, the fear is so powerful that the University of Michigan has stooped to blacklisting, a practice associated with the McCarthy era when “communist sympathizers” were fired because of their supposed political beliefs.
According to a column by Brian Dickerson, a columnist for the Detroit Free Press who supports racial preferences (I discussed another of his columns here),
law firms who work for the University of Michigan have been put on notice that assisting Connerly’s campaign [the MCRI] could jeopardize their firm’s business relationships with U-M.
In addition to being disgusting, isnt’ this sort of thing illegal? U-M is a state agency. Can it fire non-academic employees or contractors at will because of their political activity?
The connection you make with the McCarthy era is an apt one. I’ve long believed that the “liberals” have morphed into an aggregate of everything they once claimed to despise.
Don’t state agencies have to take the lowest qualified bid on contracts (where qualified includes, I suppose, racial quotas)?
John:
Morphed? Or always been?
(But of course *That’s Different! They’re evil! We’re not!*)
Of course it can hurt their business relationship. I’m sure they make an assload of money off of AA.
Morphed? Yes, some of them. Those of us who have always believed that being liberal means freedom, as in helping others (Iraq) defeat dictators, and standing up for free speach and personal opinion (anti-PC), loath the turn-coats.
States agencies have a lot of discretion when picking their lawyers. There’s no “lowest qualified bid” requirement or anything like that. In fact, since many Courts have typically said that a client’s right to choose his own attorney is more important than most other concerns, I wouldn’t be completely shocked to learn that the University’s conduct might be legal.
More evidence that the Left will stop at nothing, will abandon all principle, will engage in reprehensible behavor, will lie and cheat, to enforce their vision of rectitude on an unwilling polity.
There is also the issue of a conflict of interest. Given that an attourney has a fiduciary duty to their client not to appear to go against the arguments which they will make on their client’s behalf in court, a law firm which is heavily invested in the CRI and then has to argue the opposite case in front of a judge would be seen as hopelessly conflicted.
From the article, it doesn’t look as though only UM lawyers will have a conflict of interest. It seems that any law firm that deals in politics at all will have a conflict of interest. The entire establishment seems against this.
Where’s the 3rd party when you need it?
I’m not getting worked up over any lawyers, period!
Patrick’s argument is mostly irrelevant. An attorney who *represents* the initiative’s backers would have a conflict of interest representing UM in a case where racial quotas are an issue, but on any other matter, there is no conflict. Any large university will have lots and lots of legal work which is completely unrelated to its admissions and hiring practices.
An attorney who contributes to the Civil Rights Initiative may not even have that level of conflict.
What does it matter? Even if 100% of the voters in Michigan voted for the issue, some appointed Judge will just strike it down, make race-based preferences mandatory, and proclaim that there is a minority preference clause in the US Constitution. It’s in there of course…just before you get to the gay marriage clause, under the unlimited right to privacy clause, and a paragraph after the iron curtain between church and State.
Well, Please, it looks like you’ve seen a copy of the “real” Constitution… you know, the REAL one that only “certain people” (meaning liberal judges) actually know about. Where did you see it? The leak must be dealt with immediately!
More University of Michigan
What is wrong with the people at the University of Michigan? The courts won’t let them run roughshod over the Constitution, so now they resort to blacklists to get what they want. The lesson is simple- disagree politically with a…
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