Since the previous blog discussed an excellent (if belated) editorial by the Washington Post, let\’s go to the other side and look at a foolish, even bizarre, one from the New York Times.
As you are probably aware, The Supreme Court ruled, yesterday, that Michigan – and, therefore, other states as well – was within its constitutional rights to allow voters to ban the use of criteria such as race and gender in college admission policies.
The New York Times, being a decidedly liberal-left publication, is, of course, thrilled at this ruling, because it celebrates equality and reaffirms Martin Luther King\’s famous ideal of people being judged not by the color of their skin but the content of their character, right?
Uh….nope. The Times, being today\’s version of liberal-left, is outraged by it.
You can read the paper\’s entire editorial – with its remarkable title, “Racial Equality Loses at the Court”, by clicking here. But let me give you a few “highlights”:
Ablinkered view of race in America won out in the Supreme Court onTuesday when six justices agreed, for various reasons, to allowMichigan voters to banrace-conscious admissions policies in higher education.
“This case is not about how thedebate about racial preferences should be resolved. It is about whomay resolve it.”
Notso, Justice Sonia Sotomayor responded, in a stinging 58-page dissent.”Our Constitution places limits on what a majority of the peoplemay do,” she wrote, such as when they pass laws that oppressminorities.
Inresponse to her pointed rebuke, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrotea terse concurrence chiding Justice Sotomayor for questioning hercolleagues\’ “openness and candor.” Yet the chief justice\’sown words on race show no true understanding of what she calledAmerica\’s “long and lamentable record” of rigging the politicalgame against racial minorities. “The way to stop discrimination onthe basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,”he wrote glibly in a 2007 case striking down school integrationefforts in Washington and Kentucky. “Things have changeddramatically” 50 years after the Voting Rights Act, he wrote lastyear in ShelbyCounty v. Holder, which struck down a provision of that act.
Thesequotes represent a naive vision of racial justice. As JusticeSotomayor put it, “we ought not sit back and wish away, rather thanconfront, the racial inequality that exists in our society.”
As you can see, the Times is 100% in Justice Sotomayor\’s corner on giving preferences to minorities, even after 50 years of the United States passing laws to insure they have full legal redress against discrimination.
Remind me: Isn\’t Ms. Sotomayor the one who said “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a White male who hasn’t lived that life”?
We are supposed to be lectured on equality from someone who has told us, in so many words, that, because of her Latina ancestry, she is better able to judge things than White men? How does that differ from a KKKer telling us White people, by virtue of the richness of their experiences in western civilization and their skin color, are smarter and more productive than Blacks or Latinos?
But this is all lost on the Times\’ editorial board. Just as the simple truth of Justice Roberts\’ view that you stop discrimination by stopping discrimination, not by creating more of it as Ms. Sotomayor and the Times would like.
It\’s funny (in a strange, not ha-ha way) how the world has changed in recent times. When I was growing up the ideal was that all people should be treated equally, and the racists who demanded that there be different sets of rules based on skin color were all on the right.
Boy, has that changed. Look at who the two-sets-of rules people are now. And marvel at the fact that the left wing racists we are seeing today, actually think they are the tolerant ones.
