What about this:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061108/NEWS99/61108027[My wonderful University of Michigan President Mary Sue] Coleman says she has questions as to whether the ban is lawful, particularly as it pertains to higher education.
I have no idea how she plans to do this. She has to show that the law should have never been on the ballot in the first place, as she can't very well overturn a voter's decision because she doesn't like it. I'm pretty sure she's not going to find a clause in the Michigan Constitution that says that the state has a duty to ensure that minorities receive "bonus points." The way affirmative action has been justified in the past is that they've used an argument about "a compelling need of the state for diversity," with emphasis on the compelling need of the state. The trouble is, the compelling needs of the state change with time, and since there's not likely to be any mention of "diversity" in the constitution, she's going to have a whole lot of trouble fighting this. I'm no legal expert (DA? some help here?), but I think there's a huge difference in showing that something is lawful--that is, it is consistent with a sound interpretation of the written law--vs. showing something is unlawful--that is, there is a written law that contradicts it. Intrepretations are just that, so there is greater subjectivity in that regard, but showing a direct contradiction is a little more objective.
That the proposition passed should not be surprising. Michigan's demographics are largely white blue-collar workers, who get the true shaft when it comes to affirmative action. Rich white suburban kids can mostly overcome any sort of bonus given to underprivilaged minority students by paying for better training and throwing more money at their own education. They lose when there are minority students of the same economic status, but, that seems to comprise a minority of the minority. However, if you have an underprivilaged white kid and an underprivilaged minority student (say they even go to the same school), the minority student gets the boost because of his race, while the white kid will get no such bonus because he is white. Instead of "bringing the white rich down to a more level playing field," affirmative action actually most hurts the moderately- and under-privilaged white class because it takes most directly from them--that is, the people receiving the biggest benefits from affirmative action are within the same economic tier, with opportunities limited by the same financial limitations. When the bulk of your voters fall into the moderately- and underprivilaged white class, that such a motion passed is not at all surprising.
As a closing, I'll take one last shot at "diversity." No one has bothered to define the term, and thus, it is largely a sham word used to cover up guilt (as I explained in that other post). To say "we want cultural diversity" but limit oneself to looking in the same country, making the assumption (or the hope) that people who look different think differently as well, is pretty absurd. It's really like saying "we want cultural diversity, but only if that diversity is a subset of American culture." If people were interested in true cultural diversity, the biggest bonuses would have to be given to international students, since, if you are interested in bringing other cultures and different mindsets to the table, someone from another country is clearly going to bring a grossly different state of mind to the table than anyone who lives in America, regardless of whether they have the same color skin or the same facial structure. However, that would basically be educating the rest of the world at the cost of our own students, and
no American wants that, so they made up some half-ass definition of "diversity" to cover what they wanted to achieve. Hell, people are often a little upset when I tell them that my graduate classes are comprised of approximately 60-75% foreign nationals, feeling that we are "educating the rest of the world"--the true reality of it is that American students just largely don't go to graduate school in very high percentages. Because nations such as India and China have either few graduate schools (not enough space to accomodate all the students who want to go), or a lack of quality graduate schools, and our schools here aren't being filled by Americans, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the percentage is as high as it is. (Japan has a lot of high quality universities, and can accomodate its population, and that's a big reason why you don't see Japanese students at American universities in remotely the same numbers as students from India and China. Same thing goes for countries like England, Germany, and many other European nations.)
Of course, in some fields, "diversity" is completely irrelevant. Engineering and science, in particular. Does a black person formulate and solve equations differently or something? Different is irrelevant. "Correct" is what matters there. I can't, for the life of me, figure out why someone might think that a person from China would write a proof different from me because he is from China. In scientific fields, all that matters are the minds, and whatever host that mind is carried in is irrelevant. If he is smarter than me, he will have better insight into problems. He will not gain anything on me, nor I on him, because we were raised in different
cultures. Of course, there's ethics, but those are amazingly less variant from culture to culture when it comes to professional situations than one might expect. Embezzling company funds? Hiding evidence that a product will harm consumers? Any reasonable culture is going to find those things wrong. After that, it is a matter of personal integrity to act on one's beliefs, and that's something that culture cannot control.
Continuing to use the word "diversity" amounts to not admitting the full reality. What's wrong with saying what we really mean? If there is a compelling need for affirmative action because of guilt, let's admit that, and use the proper word. Let's not mask what we really mean with an abstract concept that generates a contradiction before we even get out of the gate.
