One of the reasons politicians like affirmative action is that supporting it make it seem like they’re “doing something,” and it doesn’t cost (them) anything. But there frequently are costs, and sometimes even governments have to pay.
A construction company, for example, will be able to recover lost profits and court costs after it successfully sued the City of Cincinnati over a lost contract.
Cleveland Construction sued in 2004, after the city threw out its $8.9 million drywall bid to pay Valley Interior Systems of Walnut Hills $1.2 million more – all because Valley had a higher number of small and minority business subcontractors.
Judge Fred Nelson ruled last year that the city’s contracting policies were unconstitutional because they used a race-based affirmative action system into account [sic], and that the city bypassed its own ordinances designed to make sure taxpayers were protected by giving preference to the lowest bid.
The Ohio 1st District Court of Appeals agreed that the program was unconstitutional – a decision that could have a profound effect on city bidding practices.
What is this world coming to? If this trend continues, governments, colleges, etc., will not only have to begin treating everyone without regard to race, but they’ll also be forced to start accepting qualified contractors who offer the lowest bids….
In addition to lawsuits, there are other costs of “diversity” that impact the taxpayer: I teach at a large (40,000+) state university, and we have diversity offices and officials at every level of administration and in each college in the university. Some departements also have their own representatives. The salaries for the officials and their staff, the travel money, the workshop money, etc, must add up several million dollars / year that could be used for education/research.
Divertity officials are our version of the communists’ political commissars.
The frightening thing about “diversity” is not just that it is often used to bar employment and advancement in many careers, and I’m not talking about the direct methods used to juggle skin color and gender numbers. There are many areas, especially in education and human resources where a lack of commitment to diversity, meaning only race and gender diversity of course, is at least or even more of a bar to advancement as are lack of talent or experience. On top of that, there is this tacit understanding that diversity is to be interpreted in such a narrow fashion (again, skin color and gender) that proponents end up demanding something that they actually don’t want to exist, at least in the traditionally accepted meaning of diversity. It’s like everyone is expected to pretend that we are trying to achieve some objectively preferable goal, when the goal itself is being presented in a dishonest fashion.
I’ll give the proponents credit, though. While we should be arguing the wisdom of promoting the less capable and less intelligent, we are instead arguing how blatantly the more capable and intelligent can be discriminated against without tromping too obviously on their civil rights.
Hello?
Can somebody PLEASE give me the day and date when America became a “meritocracy?”
When ALL jobs, positions and contracts were awarded based EXCLUSIVELY on merit and qualifications?
When name, status, cronyism, fraternalism, patronage, graft, nepotism and old boys networks ceased to mean anything?
Please give some indication that this is simply another “white makes right” argument, so I don’t have to carpet this blog with more statistics and studies. John hates when I do that.
–Cobra
hah, good question, cobra. the “without regard to” line is a just prettier way of saying “let’s bring back the days when we had it good, really, really good. obviously things were fairer then.”
Cobra’s argument, as usual, is a non-sequitur. All jobs, positions, and contracts, have never been, and will never be, awarded based exclusively on merit and qualifications. So what? That is not, in any way, an argument in favor of hiring and firing, admitting or rejecting, based on race.
It’s like the criminal defendant on trial saying, “How can you prosecute me for bank robbery? Since when did people stop littering and speeding?”
Even if these things were equally bad, one has nothing to do with the other. We don’t say, “Go ahead and do something wrong until all instances of wrongdoing have been eliminated.” (And how could we — all wrongdoers could use the same argument.)
David writes:
>>>”All jobs, positions, and contracts, have never been, and will never be, awarded based exclusively on merit and qualifications. So what? That is not, in any way, an argument in favor of hiring and firing, admitting or rejecting, based on race.”
Sure it is. If you’re AGREEING with me that a meritocracy will NEVER exist, then what’s your beef with Affirmative Action in the first place?
Is it the fact that the preferences are displayed openly ON the table and not
UNDER the table with winks and nods?
Your post personifies “Cobra Argument #2”, that anti-affirmative action types are guilty of “selective outrage.”
Hamstringing minorities over alleged unfairness while saying “So what?” when the same types of preferences work predominantly in favor of whites is a vivid and well-documented symptom of “white skin privelege.”
–Cobra
“Is it the fact that the preferences are displayed openly ON the table and not
UNDER the table with winks and nods?”
“Hamstringing minorities over alleged unfairness…”
Openly displayed but alleged. An honest man (we remember, Cobra) would be shamed.
Time to leave childhood behind and grow up, Cobra. You really have no choice anyway, so best to make it look as if it comes from within.
Mikem writes:
>>>”Openly displayed but alleged. An honest man (we remember, Cobra) would be shamed.
Time to leave childhood behind and grow up, Cobra. You really have no choice anyway, so best to make it look as if it comes from within.”
I suppose you would have me adopt the “mature” or “adult” position of turning a blind eye (“colorblind” to be precise) to preferences that historically and concurrently benefit whites, while vigorously fighting to destroy any type of preference for minorities designed to counter-balance the afforementioned white ones?
I don’t recall ever receiving any Heritage Foundation, Hoover Institute, or Manhattan Institute checks, so the possibility of that is pretty remote, Mikem.
Maybe it just SOUNDS better to you on the echo chamber blogs, or talk radio…
–Cobra