affirmative action

The Democratic Party’s Unethical And Irrational Obsession With Diversity, Part Two: Amazingly, It’s Even Worse Than I Thought

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

On December 14, 2019, I posted “The Democratic Party’s Unethical And Irrational Obsession With Diversity” at a point where I concluded that the Left’s diversity con had reached res ipsa loquitur dimensions, at least for Americans still capable of hearing what this res was loquituring despite years of pummeling by consultants and diversity seminars. That would be that “diversity” is a cover word for “quotas and affirmative action.”

I’ve been in some of those seminars; to my undying shame, I’ve even taught a couple for a fee. They are intellectually dishonest to the core, resting on the Bizarro World  argument that more diverse groups and bodies are necessarily better, wiser, and more effective than  homogeneous groups with more ability and talent. This is manifestly nonsense, except that it is not politically correct to say so. Is President Trump’s Cabinet better in any way because Ben Carson is Secretary of HUD? He’s a dolt, as anyone who watched the GOP Presidential debates knows beyond a shadow of a doubt. Is the Supreme Court better because Justice Sotomayor is on it? Read one of her opinions and then try to say that with a straight face.

The proof that diversity activism is a rationalization-based scam is everywhere, with the fact that it is only applied in one direction the smoking res. Nobody argues that NBA and NFL teams would be better of they had demographics closer to the nation’s. The Oscars were attacked because there aren’t “enough” black performers or female directors nominated this year, but no one complains about the lack of diversity in all-black awards shows. The impetus for December post was all the Democratic and mainstream media flesh-rending over the fact that the erstwhile Presidential candidates “of color” had been so weak and feckless that even Democrats had rejected them. “But…but..diversity!”

Pointing to the Washington Post’s assessment of the top 13 people with the best chance of being on the party’s ticket as Vice President—all are women, minorities or both—I wrote, “What subliminal message are Democrats sending to the world when they exclude straight, white men as qualified candidates for Vice-President? That’s easy. They are saying that the party cares more about diversity than it does about leading the nation.”

Diversity without rigging the result can be a valuable measure of how race, ethnicity and gender-blind the culture has become, but the fact that any group or body happens to appear diverse is itself no indication of excellence. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying or deluded.

I thought the bloviating about the Democratic debate line-up was as ridiculous as this sham could get, Boy was I wrong. Continue reading →

A University Demonizes Diversity Of Thought

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The headline in the New York Times last month read, “Indiana University Admits That Professor’s Views Are Vile, And That It Can’t Fire Him.” Nice. First, another party can’t “admit” someone else’s opinions are vile, as if there is a universal standard for “vile.”  Second, the headline assumes that the professor is the villain in this controversy, but then, that’s the Times for you: taking sides instead of reporting the facts.

I apologize for missing this chapter in the ongoing effort to intimidate and persecute anyone whose views do not align neatly with the mandated progressive orthodoxy.  The Times piece in question is dated November 23; not only was that my wedding anniversary, but I was also on an ethics training road trip without a functioning laptop. (I have one now.) I’m pretty sure I would have perceived the need for Ethics Alarms to bring some fairness to the assault on Professor Eric Rasmusen, though, as you will see, he is very capable of defending himself, if he could get a fair hearing (or reading).

The reason he can’t is because the news media has already decided that he should be shunned, as students try to run him out of academia and the marketplace of ideas.

To be clear, Professor Rasmusen is the victim of unethical conduct here, not the perpetrator of it. His “crime,” and it is not supposed to be a crime in the United States or academia, is asserting non-conforming views on his personal blog.  The news media framed the story to undermine Rasmusen by stating as fact that he “used his social media accounts to denigrate women, people of color and gay men.” That is a false and unfair characterization, Rasmusen uses his blog and social media accounts to cover a wide range of topics, often brilliantly, from the perspective of a Christian conservative. Continue reading →

The Democratic Party’s Unethical And Irrational Obsession With Diversity

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

There is mass outrage in the Democratic Party, we are told,  over the fact that Cory Booker and Deval Patrick won’t be on the debate stage in December’s candidate’s debate, and neither will former housing secretary Julián Castro, or Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. True, Andrew Yang has qualified, but Asians don’t count as minorities to progressives, because they are so successful and don’t commit many crimes, heaven knows why.  That’s why Harvard can discriminate against them and get away with it. But I digress…

There’s just one reason Yang will be the only non-white candidate on the stage: the other minority candidates couldn’t justify their candidacy, even among the frightening weak competition of Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Tom Steyer, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar. Naturally, Democrats being Democrats and primed to blame any result they don’t like on racism, sexism or bias, this obvious example of democracy working the way it’s supposed to is being condemned.  Well, I should clarify that: It’s working the way I think it’s supposed to, the way the Founders thought it was supposed to, and pretty much the way everyone thought it was supposed to until progressives came up with the moonbat idea that results were only fair if they distributed benefits in strict accordance with demographic percentages, and were even better if they gave an edge to “historically disadvantaged minorities.”

Thus, even though the process of deciding the winners in the slow motion musical chairs of the Democratic nomination game seems to rely on who the voters think is best qualified, that process is, according to moonbattism, bad, as in racist and unfair, if the process doesn’t yield sufficient numbers of contenders with the  right skin shades. The party really thinks like this, or at least significant numbers of the party to render the entire party untrustworthy.

I don’t understand how anyone can responsibly put a party in power that has adopted such an obviously destructive and non-democratic position.

“What message is that sending that we heralded the most diverse field in our history and now we’re seeing people like her dropping out of this campaign?” Senator Booker asked a crowd in Iowa. He darkly suggested that Kamala Harris left the race “not because Iowa voters had the voice. Voters did not determine her destiny,” but because bigotry was afoot.

The message being sent , Senator, was that lousy candidates like Kamala Harris (and you), who bungled every debate and who appear to have no leadership qualities at all, don’t appeal to voters seriously looking for a President rather than a symbol, like Bracak Obama. It is deeply self-serving for Booker to attribute Harris’s failure to racism, since he appeals to even fewer voters than she did, and is also, like her, wearing skin in the darker range.

The New York Times gasps, “The Democratic primary is facing a reckoning. In two weeks, Democrats will gather in Los Angeles for a debate that is likely to feature an entirely white roster. That is not, several candidates and prominent party members say, how the party that emphasizes diversity and fairness should want to represent itself.”

How about the fact that none of the candidates on that stage appear to be competent, trustworthy or responsible? Shouldn’t that be more of a concern than the skin-tones of the various socialists and panderers debating each other?

Not in Democrat Quota Land, I guess. Here’s a howler from the Times that only a thoroughly brain-washed progressive zombie could read without laughing:

“Some blame the rules for qualifying for the debates. The polling requirements give an advantage to candidates who can invest in extensive television advertising to get their name out. Others note, however, that the candidates of color in the 2020 field have not drawn significant support from black and Latino voters.”

Continue reading →

The Ruling In The Harvard Asian Discrimination Case: So What WAS “The Point”?

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

In response to U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs’ ruling this week that Harvard University does not discriminate against Asian Americans in undergraduate admissions, two commentators issued reactions with almost themes: the ruling missed the point. In the New York Times, law professor Melissa Murray wrote that the opinion missed the point by being…

…focused on diversity as the sole grounds on which the use of race in admissions may be justified. As Judge Burroughs noted in her ruling, diversity-centered admissions policies can “enhance the education of students of all races and backgrounds, to prepare them to assume leadership roles in the increasingly pluralistic society into which they will graduate,” “broaden the perspectives of teachers” and “expand the reach of the curriculum and the range of scholarly interests.” Her words echo the standard refrains that have been deployed to defend affirmative action since Justice Lewis Powell’s opinion in University of California v. Bakke (1978). Justice Powell famously extolled the virtues of the “Harvard Plan,” which recognized that a “farm boy from Idaho can bring something to Harvard College that a Bostonian cannot offer.” The problem, of course, is that thinking about diversity in terms of what beneficiaries might contribute makes the benefits of affirmative action contingent and conditional — worthy only because its beneficiaries serve the broader needs of institutions and those who are assumed to belong.

To the contrary, Murray believes that Harvard’s race preferences out to be justified as permanent reparations, though she never uses those exact words.  (Hmmmm.…I wonder if she’s black? Let’s see…why yes, she is!):

Those who fought for affirmative action expected institutions to maintain policies that ensured continued representation of those who had long been excluded. But at least in the courts, these convictions have been largely jettisoned.

That’s because they are unethical, illegal and unconstitutional.

The momentary victory for Harvard, which was correctly accused of discriminating against Asian-Americans in admissions in order to further affirmative action goals, was the result of an ideological rather than a legal analysis. I give the judge credit for being open about his bias: how else could one interpret his reasoning? From the Washington Post:

While Harvard’s “admissions process may be imperfect,” Burroughs wrote, the judge concluded that statistical disparities among racial groups of applicants “are not the result of any racial animus or conscious prejudice.”

The law does not require “racial animus or conscious prejudice” to make  racial discrimination illegal. Discrimination on the basis of race is unfair, unjust, illegal and wrong. The judge doesn’t address that fact; he just explains why Harvard’s discrimination is the good kind, writing,  “The use of race benefits certain racial and ethnic groups that would otherwise be underrepresented at Harvard and is therefore neither an illegitimate use of race or reflective of racial prejudice.”

What does “under-represented” mean? This is a tell: Judge Burroughs is a disciple of the Left’s edict that  institutions, workplaces, benfits and distinctions are inherently suspect or harmful if they don’t closely match demographic divisions within the public in general. This essentially un-American myth requires the use of quotas while disguising their intent and function.

Affirmative action has always been an example of policy hypocrisy, engaging in present discrimination in order to combat the effects of past discrimination. It was justified, at best, as a temporary breach of core principles in pursuit of a theoretical remedy to a unique problem.

Another “the opinion missed the point” article had a more useful, if also flawed,  analysis than the law professor’s “We should keep discriminating against whites and Asians forever because of slavery and Jim Crow” argument. Richard Ford makes the case in “The Harvard Ruling Misses the Point” that the entire debate is taking place within an absurdity. Elite institutions like Harvard exist to bestow the credential of being  certified “elite,” a member of the deserving American upper class. “Democratizing” the anointment process by artificially using factors that have nothing to do with merit or achievement to bestow elitism is self-contradictory: once it becomes obvious that getting admitted to Harvard signifies nothing substantive, then Harvard’s ability to sanctify its graduates vanishes, or should.

It should. Harvard’s degree always was something of a fraud in this respect. Ford correctly observes,

The unstated assumption that folds affirmative action into a general critique of elite admissions is that acceptance should be based exclusively on individual merit (and that merit, in turn, should be measured by grades and test scores). Indeed, opponents of affirmative action often speak as if it is a departure from an otherwise even-handed and admirable meritocracy. But the Harvard case and the bribery scandal both expose—in high relief, if not for the first time—the extent to which non-racial (and hence legally unproblematic) admissions preferences dwarf those associated with race. Athletes, legacy applicants, and those otherwise likely to help universities secure large donations enjoy higher admission rates than members of underrepresented racial groups. Affirmative action is one of the more modest of many departures from numerical indicia of merit.

Continue reading →

Perhaps Hollywood Was Just Virtue Signaling And Grandstanding On The “Inclusion Rider.” If So, Good.

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Apparently there is some disappointment among social justice warriors that the much ballyhooed “inclusion rider,” promoted by actress Frances McDormand in her 2018 Oscar acceptance speech, has not taken the city by storm despite abundant lip service from the Tinsel Town “woke.”  What a surprise: a business that either thrives or falls on the quality and popularity of its product chooses to make artistic decisions based on talent and merit rather than tribal quotas.

The “inclusion rider,” in its most literal form, is essentially a pledge to engage in discrimination, and to subjugate the purpose of art to “diversity” goals. All one has to do is observe the practices of “inclusion” advocates like Ava DuVernay,  currently embroiled in controversy over her racially slanted portrayal  of the Central Park Five story in her series, “When They See Us. She has vowed to hire only female directors for her series “Queen Sugar.” And how is refusing to hire an entire gender for a project “inclusion”? Well, one has to comprehend the tortured logic of the Diversity Nazis to answer that question. Continue reading →

What Is The Ethical Response To The Racially Unbalanced Admissions To New York City’s Elite High Schools?

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

The question has been giving me a headache since I first read about the stunning results of the process that gives New York City students access to its elite public schools.  Of the nearly 4,800 students admitted into the specialized schools for 2019, 190 are black, down from  207 black students admitted last year out of just over 5,000 offers. Stuyvesant high school, which is representative, gave 7 offers to black students (out of 895 slots),   33 offers to Hispanic students, 194 offers to white students, and Asian-American students received a whopping  587 offers. Overall, Asian-American students constitute 60% of the student bodies of the eight elite schools.

Students take  a single exam that tests their mastery of math and English in order to gains entrance to the academically challenging school. Stuyvesant, which has the highest cutoff score for admission and is thus the most selective of the schools, now has the lowest percentage of black and Hispanic students of any of New York City’s roughly 600 public high schools.

What should the city do about this? Should it do anything?  Continue reading →

The Big Law Firm’s New Partners

/ Jack Marshall / 42 Comments

In early December of last year, Paul, Weiss, one of the country’s largest and richest firms, announced its new partners: twelve young white lawyers, and one similarly hued woman.

Being that group identification is everything to certain well-placed people today, the announcement became an instant “public relations nightmare,” according to many media accounts. Sensitive to being sufficiently “woke,” many large companies had their  general counsels, sign an open letter  calling on law firms firms  “to reflect the diversity of the legal community” or they would send their business elsewhere.

What is the assumption underlying that letter? Is it that whites were chosen over better qualified minority lawyers as an act of bigotry and racism? Noooo, nobody’s suggesting that. Are the signatories to the letter really saying that less qualified lawyers of color should be advanced rather than these lawyers? It can’t be that, can it? I would say that a law firm that does not make every effort to have the very best lawyers available for the benefit of the clients is treading close to unethical behavior. A firm can’t prioritize diversity, whatever than means, over its own abilities to represent clients.

I nearly dropped Above the Law, but the reliably knee-jerk left and ethically obtuse online rag is great for these stories, and didn’t disappoint this time. Joe Patrice, the editor, wrote, Continue reading →

The Dumbest Casting Ethics Controversy Yet

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Sometimes the line between confused ethics and plain old stupidity is razor thin. This controversy is one of those times.

Actor Bryan Cranston, best known for “Breaking Bad,”  is being criticized for playing a a quadriplegic billionaire in “The Upside,” his new film  released Friday, because he is not actually handicapped.

He’s also not a billionaire, but that doesn’t seem to be an issue for some reason.

Jay Ruderman of the Ruderman Family Foundation complained, “While we don’t know the auditioning history of ‘The Upside,” casting a non-disabled actor to play a character with a disability is highly problematic and deprives performers with disabilities the chance to work and gain exposure.”

No, Jay, it isn’t problematic, because the primary objective of the performing arts is not, and has never been, to provide “the chance to work and gain exposure.” This is the affirmative action mentality that as it gets stretched further and further from reality and common sense by the woke and the wokeness-addled, increasingly ensures that society eventually  rejects the whole tortured concept. The objective of the performing arts is to entertain, engage and enlighten the audience. That requires casting the best actors available, and in film, frequently the best know actors, in the judgment of the director and the producer. Bryan Cranston is one of the most skilled actors in the world. I am extremely confident that there isn’t a single quadriplegic actor that can equal him, if indeed there are any at all. Audrey Hepburn could also play a blind woman better than any of the few available blind actresses, when she starred in “Wait Until Dark.” Tom Hanks and cliff Roberrtson could play  mentally-challenged caharcters in “Forrest Gump” and “Charlie” better than any mentally-challenged actors.

I can’t believe we even have to have this conversation. Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, December 19, 2018: Facebook’s Lies, Hillary’s Letter, Harvard’s Defenders, And Kavanaugh’s Victory

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Good Morning!

1. Open Forum today! As soon as this post is up, I’ll open a forum for readers here to raise their own suggestions for ethics topics and to offer their commentary without me getting in the way. The last one was a spectacular success, attracting over a hundred comments, generating many fascinating threads, and producing three Comments of the Day so far. Just keep the topics on ethics, don’t get distracted by tangents and bickering, and keep it civil.

The immediate motivation for today’s forum is that I have to prepare for and deliver an annual end of year ethics CLE seminar at the D.C. bar. If you’re in the vicinity and need the credits, or just want a lively ethics workout, come on by and say hello. Here are the details:

Date: December 19, 2018

Event start time :1:30 PMEvent end time:4:45 PM

Venue:D.C. Bar: 901 4th ST NW, Washington, DC 20001-2776

Credit: 3.0 Ethics Credit Hours, including 3 hours of professionalism for those states with such requirement.

Description: Widespread discord in our current culture places unusual stress on professional ethics, and unfortunately, the legal profession is not immune. The past year saw many legal professionals, including famous names in the law, make questionable decisions and breach legal ethics standards, providing both cautionary tales and fodder for analysis. This challenging and interactive class will explore important developments and looming perils that every lawyer should be ready to face.

Topics include:

• Direct adversity vs. “general adversity,” and whether it matters
• Sexual harassment as a legal ethics problem, and the profession’s vulnerability to “The King’s Pass”
• Defying a client for the client’s own good
• Fees, referrals and gaming the rules for fun and profit
• Professional responsibility vs. legal ethics
• The increasing threat to law firm independence and integrity
• The technology ethics earthquake

..and more!

Faculty: Jack Marshall, Pro Ethics Ltd.
Fee: $89 D.C. Bar Communities Members; $99 D.C. Bar Members; $109 Government Attorneys; $129 Others

2. Meanwhile, here are Facebook’s “standards”… As Ethics Alarms posts continue to be blocked on Facebook in various ways, including by “community standards” that for some reason reject the ethics of “Miracle on 34th Street,” the social media behemoth’s own standards are coming into focus: From CNBC: Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: Mid-Day Ethics Warm-Up, 10/16/18: The Jerk Squad (Item #2)

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Elizabeth Warren has been allowed to have her embarrassing experience with DNA testing slide back into the memory hole, and Massachusetts voters happily returned the Leftist demagogue to the Senate. Ignoring the character deficiencies of its Senators is a long tradition in my home state. For once, my sloth in not posting Comment of the Day in a timely fashion has paid dividends, for it allows me to raise the Warren fiasco of last month…yes, it was less than a month ago, incredibly—in all of its yummy ethics nastiness.

johnburger2013 authored this commentary, and here is his Comment of the Day on Item #2 in the post, Mid-Day Ethics Warm-Up, 10/16/18: The Jerk Squad, in which I opined in part,

If all goes well, Elizabeth Warren’s triumphant discovery that she is 99.9% white and therefore was justified in representing herself as a “person of color” for institutional diversity purposes will sink her career aspirations as deep as they deserve to be sunk. The fact that so much of the mainstream media is willing to have their credibility brought down with her is indicative of how stupid bias will make people. The Daily Beast, for example, writes in a headline, “Warren revealed results show Native American heritage Monday.”

Keep it up, guys. Pretty soon the jig will be up for identify politics, since  if 1/1,024th Native American means “Native American heritage,” then everyone is “of color” somehow. In that case, perhaps we’ll owe Warren a debt of gratitude….

Now here’s jb….

Warren had an easy out of this mangled story: She should/could have said that she believed her family’s telling of the events and, being originally from Oklahoma, it would be reasonable to believe that she had Native American heritage.* But, she elaborated on the story, to make it more compelling. She also told interviewers her father’s parents did not approve of his choice for a wife because her mother was Cherokee.**

Warren is a lawyer and, supposedly, is very bright. If you’ve watched or listened to CNN and MSNBC for the last four years or so, she is the very embodiment of moral authority over all things . . . erm . . . moral, guided by a passionate desire to help the poor and the middle class.

She knew, and reasonably should have know, that DNA is not determinative of Native American heritage. What matters is being included in the tribes’ relevant hereditary scrolls. In fact, she said that in an interview, so she was aware of the standard and she is aware that she is not so listed. Continue reading →