Some more wisdom from Clegg

Author: Joshua Thompson

Loyal followers of the Liberty Blog have come to recognize Roger Clegg's name by now.  As President and General counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity, Mr. Clegg's work has been documented here many times.   Saturday, the Philadelphia Inquirer published an excellent op-ed from Mr. Clegg.  Here's a snippet:

By the way, the phrase affirmative action can mean both racial preferences (which are bad) and taking positive steps to ensure nondiscrimination against anyone (the original meaning). Nobody has any objection to the latter, and the former — which includes not only set-asides, but also “targets” and “goals,” since they inevitably lead to quotas — is the focus here.

The purported justification for preferences in contracting is much narrower than in university admissions. There is no “diversity” justification for them, since there is no African American vs. Latino vs. white perspective on how to repave a school parking lot. The only justification is remedial — that is, a claim that we have to use racial preferences to remedy racial discrimination.

But, as Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr. wrote recently, “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

Read the rest here. 

(In the op-ed, Mr. Clegg mentions this joint effort by PLF and CEO to draft a model brief that can be used by companies to challenge race-based contracting programs.)