Reply #144: You should read this... [View All]

I've included some Christopher Edley quotes below. However, I wanted to clarify something.

I feel we have a basic misunderstanding here. When I speak about class based AA, it is NOT to the exclusion of race/gender based AA. It is in addition to.

At the time Clinton and Dean considered the matter of class, the Adarand case was pending. The issue of constitutionality was raised.

"...The Supreme Court's decision in Adarand Constructors, Inc.
v. Peña changed the standard of legal analysis required to determine
the constitutionality of affirmative action programs that apply to
race and ethnicity."

"The Supreme Court's 1995 decision involving Adarand drastically narrowed affirmative action by saying such aid must be narrowly tailored to meet a compelling government goal. At the time, it was assumed that very few affirmative action programs could meet that test."

"The Legal Status of Affirmative Action Recent Supreme Court decisions (especially Adarand v. Pena) will have the effect of significantly reducing the scope of acceptable federal government affirmative action programs. In that case, the Court applied to federal actions the standard already binding on states and localities: programs must serve a "compelling" interest and must be "narrowly tailored." An analysis by discrimination law expert Paul Gewirtz reaches the following conclusions:

1. Objectives such as enhancing "diversity" and "inclusion" or addressing general "societal discrimination" do not qualify as compelling.

*Get this!* So, now what?

2. A specific showing of particular discrimination, going beyond simple statistical disparities among racial and ethnic groups, must be made.

3. Even when a compelling interest is found, race-based methods may be used only after race-neutral methods are considered and found wanting, only to the extent needed to remedy the identified discrimination, only when the plaintiffs seeking a racial preference have themselves suffered from past discrimination, and only if undue burdens on non- beneficiaries (such as layoffs) are avoided."

If we had a Republican President at the time of the Adarand ruling, Affirmative Action would likely have been eliminated. We had a President and a Party that worked to preserve it.

So you see, the talk of class based AA was a response to possibly losing AA altogether. It was feared that AA may be eliminated due to the Adarand case. Howard Dean and Bill Clinton were thinking on their feet. How can we work around this ruling?

Again, no one wanted to eliminate race from consideration, Dean and Clinton sought to expand AA in order to preserve it.

Christopher Edley is also supportive of having a class element taken into consideration. *Again, not to the exclusion of race* However, Read what he said below. Note he and I are both speaking about 'class' in the 'classic' sense of the word.

"I think that moving to class based affirmative action and excluding, eliminating race based affirmative action would be a disaster. I'm in favor of class based affirmative action. Every selective university that I know of, for example, does it. They view that kind of diversity as important to their mission and helpful to the educational enterprise. So do I."

"The point is that race is an additional and separable factor in diversity..."~ Christopher Edley

EDLEY went on to say:

"Look, if I go to rent the apartment or apply for a loan class matters, race matters too. So measures that simply address the class issue are simply going to be incomplete. They are not going to deal effectively with the problem of discrimination. Now with regard to diversity, again class matters but race matters too ..."

"Now again, it's not all black and white. Context matters a lot and the nuances matter a lot. I think it is wrong to say that in all circumstances diversity is a compelling justification, just as it is wrong to say that diversity is never a compelling justification." ~ Christopher Edley

*In other words, we should consider several factors with regard to AA*


Refs:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/race/interviews/edley.html

http://www.puaf.umd.edu/IPPP/1QQ.HTM


CHILD IS AWAKE NOW SO I'M OUTTA HERE. I'LL CHECK BACK WITH YOU ALL TOMORROW

~Peace