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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (67099)	1/19/2003 11:40:16 PM
From: KLP	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

John, would you be more specific as to which "American liberties were so abridged"....? It would seem that we have already a multitude of laws, and if they had been taken into consideration, there wouldn't have had to be a single change since 9/11. Immigration Laws, for instance. Do not plot against the overthrow of the United States, for instance. To say nothing of The Golden Rule and The Ten Commandments.

To: JohnM who wrote (67099)	1/20/2003 1:14:29 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

~OT~...Bush's brief on diversity earns an F By Thomas Oliphant Columnist The Boston Globe 1/19/2003 WASHINGTON: If I were a university admissions official and George W. Bush were an applicant submitting a short essay on affirmative action, I would toss his application. First, he was too lazy and inattentive to correct a wrong word. Bush's statement, as did his audible voice, referred to ''perspective'' students at the University of Michigan. The right word is ''prospective,'' and two days after it was issued the statement had still not been corrected. Second, he attempted to slide past a challenge with a classic lazy mind's phrase. The admissions policies at the undergraduate and law school branches of the university, he said, ''amount to a quota system.'' In places that value standards as a teaching tool, nothing ''amounts to'' anything. The admissions procedure either is or is not a quota system. Worse, Bush tried to slide by the problem precisely because the policies in question are not quotas. Worst of all, Bush's statement is dishonest and sneaky because it does not confront the important question at issue - whether race can be used as a factor in university admissions and if so how. On the one hand, he declared that ''we should not be satisfied with the current numbers of minorities on American campuses.'' But he again failed to explain how to attack this dissatisfaction without being specifically aware of it. The task of taking a formal position was left to the administration's solicitor general, Ted Olson, a famously conservative opponent of any affirmative action. Late Thursday evening, his briefs attacking the two university policies were filed just ahead of the Supreme Court's deadline. Lo and behold, the doctrinaire Olson was forced to fudge the key issue as well. I will never forget another deadline 25 years ago, when I covered the court's famous decision in the case of Allan Bakke, the angry white male denied admission to a University of California medical school. The court was deeply divided; there were multiple opinions; what they had decided was not immediately clear. Gradually, after multiple readings, it dawned on me that you could construct a majority around the concept articulated by Justice Lewis Powell, a meticulous lawyer - Bakke was ordered admitted, but affirmative action was also sustained as long as race was in effect ''a'' factor in the process but not ''the'' factor. The word Powell chose made race an acceptable ''plus.'' The United States went on to deal with race and diversity in a varied manner, and affirmative action that doesn't come close to quotas has been a key factor in the success, especially at the most selective, application-deluged institutions. Political times change, though, and the conservative attack has never abated. When the court accepted the two cases last year, the entire world assumed (accurately) that the Bakke decision as defined by Lewis Powell was being revisited. For political and policy reasons, however, Bush is attempting to stand alone in dodging the issue. Olson's briefs in part seems to argue that because there are other, allegedly ''race neutral'' means of achieving racial diversity, the Michigan procedures should be tossed. The argument is not worthy of his sharp mind. Worse, to avoid facing the Bakke decision, Bush has claimed what is disproved by the facts - that the two schools' policies are actually quotas. The president falsely claimed admission on a point system for undergraduates ''often'' uses race as ''the decisive factor.'' Baloney. As university president Mary Sue Coleman patiently points out, 110 out of the 150 available points (you get in with 100) are awarded for purely academic achievement. Michigan is not a huge fan of SAT scores (12 points), but it likes good grades (up to 80 points). Nonwhite applicants get 20 points, but so does any applicant from a severely disadvantaged community (though you only get one of those 20-point ''pluses''). In addition, applicants from the low -income, largely white Upper Peninsula get 16 points. Bush also falsely said the law school's system is designed ''to meet percentage targets.'' The highly individualized process in fact works off an unfixed goal of achieving a ''critical mass'' of nonwhites. School officials point out that the number of admitted nonwhites varies year to year about as much as the number of people admitted from California. One size should not fit all. Bush's favorite concept from Texas that automatically accepts kids from varied top percentages of their high school class has demonstrated real potential. However, this supposed neutrality is less helpful for some places than others and is after all based on still-segregated housing patterns. In all it was a shoddy performance by an over-politicized White House. The charitable thing to do with Bush is gently suggest he needs a little tutoring and should reapply next year. Thomas Oliphant's e-mail address is oliphant@globe.com. © Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company. boston.com