Tag Archives: culture

Racism in School Admission Selection Criteria

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The advocates for Harvard and the Federal government in defending Harvard’s and the University of North Carolina’s racist selection criteria—all in the name of diversity and equity, understand—both said that they saw no end to their use of race in their selection criteria. Our Progressive-Democratic Party President Joe Biden, through his Solicitor General, doesn’t even see a need to end racism in admission selection criteria.

Seth Waxman, Harvard’s advocate, admitted that the school is trying hard to get to a race-neutral future but sees no end in sight for preferences.

Sure they’re trying to put an end to it. Or to something.

Waxman went further, rationalizing

Harvard’s use of race by saying it is merely one of many “tips” that the school uses in making judgments about whom to admit—like whether a student is the child of an alumnus, or an athlete. …”just as being, you know, an oboe player in a year” when the school orchestra needs an oboe player “will be the tip.”

Chief Justice John Roberts commented on the disgusting nature of that:

We did not fight a Civil War about oboe players. We did fight a Civil War to eliminate racial discrimination.

Biden was even more explicit:

Elizabeth Prelogar, the US Solicitor General…said using race the way the schools do could continue as long as their interest in diversity is “compelling.”

This disdain for the ability of some groups of Americans to compete, and so to maintain the need explicitly to protect those groups, is straight out of the philosophy of Roger Taney, and it’s shameful.

Racial Discrimination and College Admission

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Racial discrimination—racism—is enthusiastically practiced in a broad number of American colleges and universities, including in particular Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, whose racial discrimination in admission has been hauled before the Supreme Court.

Edward Blum, Founder and President of Students for Fair Admissions, made a sound argument against those two schools’ racism in admissions in his Sunday Wall Street Journal op-ed.

The common element in each lawsuit is the claim that both schools racially gerrymander their freshman classes by illegally raising the bar for certain racial and ethnic groups and lowering the bar for others.

I say the matter is broader than that, though. Racial discrimination everywhere and always is an immoral discrimination. The immorality doesn’t make it illegal, but it should inform Americans considering whether two support these two institutions in any form. It’s also wholly illegal under the 14th Amendment of our Constitution, which states in pertinent part

…nor shall any State…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

UNC is a public institution, and so is plainly bound by our Constitution. Harvard is a private institution, but stands in blatant violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It’s also plainly a public accommodation within the spirit of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and so still cannot discriminate on the basis of race.

What the Ratings Mean

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Viewpoint Diversity Score is a relatively new organization; it’s a project of Alliance Defending Freedom. VDS’ goal:

Through our Business Index and Resources we’re providing a roadmap for businesses to meaningfully respect customers, and other external stakeholders who hold diverse religious and ideological beliefs, foster viewpoint diversity in their workplaces, and reflect a commitment to the underlying principles of American democracy through their giving and political engagement.

This isn’t, though, a crowd pushing diversity, equity, and inclusion claptrap; it’s much more serious than that. They’re not demanding that everyone comport themselves in accordance with VDS’ viewpoints or be cancelled. Instead,

The Business Index evaluates corporate policies, practices, and activities to determine whether companies respect their stakeholders’ freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief as a standard part of doing business.

And from their Business Index report,

Viewpoint Diversity Score’s annual Business Index is the first comprehensive benchmark designed to measure corporate respect for religious and ideological diversity in the market, workplace, and public square. True diversity requires protecting freedom of expression and belief for employees, customers, shareholders, and other stakeholders.

VDS’ Business Index surveys companies, and based on their answers along with outside, publicly available information regarding what the surveyed companies actually do, the Business Index awards a Market Score, a Workplace Score, a Public Square Score, and a composite of the three. Each score and the composite could range from 0% (a terrible score) to 100% (and outstanding score).

Market-related questions for the survey include things like

  • Terms of Use/Service Avoid Unclear or Imprecise Terms
  • Harmful Conduct Policies Apply Equally
  • Terms of Use/Service Avoid Viewpoint Discrimination
  • Public Anti-Viewpoint Discrimination Policy
  • Notice of Content or Service Restrictions
  • CSR/ESG Reporting Includes Freedom of Expression and Belief

under Respecting Customers’ Freedom of Expression and Belief. There were similarly probing questions under Respecting Venders’ Freedom of Expression and Belief and Transparent Screening and Enforcement Practices.

Workplace-related categories included Religious and Ideological Diversity in the Workplace, Respecting Civil Rights and Promoting Viewpoint Diversity, Respecting Religious Diversity at Work, and Respecting Employee Charity Choice.

Public Square-related categories included Political Spending and Advocacy Reflects Diverse Views, Respecting Shareholder Support for Viewpoint Diversity, and Respect Diverse Views in Charity and Society.

The Business Index surveyed 50 companies in this first survey; it expects to expand the number surveyed in the coming years.

The results of this survey were…disappointing. The highest score any company achieved was 35%, and most of the scores were in the range of 18% or less, including 16 of the companies in single digits and 6 of the companies doing no better than 6%. One barely made it onto the board at 2%.

From the Executive Summary [emphasis in the original]:

Benchmarked companies scored an average of 12% overall on respecting religious and ideological diversity in the market, workplace, and public square. This poor performance is cause for concern, especially because these companies represent some of the largest businesses in America and provide essential services to millions of people and organizations every day. While no industry exhibited strong performance, there were a handful that scored particularly poorly. The two industries with the lowest overall scores were computer software at 6%, and internet services and retailing at 8%. The financial and data services industry also came in at a low overall average score of 11%. These subpar results paint a grim picture of Corporate America’s respect for religious and ideological diversity.

And [emphasis in the original]:

One finding of particular concern is that social media companies, which provide services critical to the freedom of individuals and groups to participate equally in the digital public square, are concentrated in an industry (internet services and retailing) with one of the lowest average overall scores. Not surprisingly, nearly all of those companies are also among the lowest performers across industries.

This is how far the Left’s Woke Culture has penetrated, and deprecated our society—it’s deeply into our businesses, especially those dominating our ability to speak and to debate the questions of concern to us.

The complete report, including a review of the survey’s outcome and details of how the scores were generated, can be found here or via Viewpoint Diversity Score’s site here.

National Digital ID

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The Senate’s Progressive-Democratic Party-dominated Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (as are all Senate and House committees in this Congress so dominated) passed out of committee a plan to impose a national digital ID system for US citizens—the better for Government tracking of its subjects.

Supporters claim that such national IDs could be

the key to unlocking access to financial services, various government benefits and educational opportunities, as well as a number of other critical services.

What they ignore is that such things also could be key to freezing those same items when they’re held by those of whom Government disapprove—just as the Progressive-Democrat-run IRS targeted conservative political action entities, and as the Progressive-Democrat DoJ is (still!) targeting mothers who object to school board wokeness as domestic terrorists, and as the Progressive-Democrat-dominated FBI still is targeting Trump-supporters, and as the Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden is naming half of us average Americans pseudo-fascists.

Jay Stanley, a Senior Policy Analyst for the ACLU on national digital IDs:

…digital IDs could prove to be a privacy nightmare. “But digital is not always better—especially when systems are exclusively digital.”
“There’s a reason that most jurisdictions have spurned electronic voting in favor of paper ballots, for example,”

That’s the best purpose that a national ID could serve—and it’s anathema to individual liberty. But it’s part and parcel of Party’s avowed purpose of “fundamentally transforming America.”

No.

We already have a national ID. It’s our passports. The critical difference is that generation of and possession of a passport is strictly voluntary and done solely on the initiative of each individual American citizen.

What’s next from the Progressive-Democrats? Internal travel documents? They tried that, after all, in some areas at the height of the Wuhan Virus situation, barring travel unless the traveler could present suitable vaccination papers to relevant authorities.

A Question

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Pope Francis has renewed an…agreement…between the Vatican and the People’s Republic of China that allows appointment of Catholic Bishops in the PRC, so long as the PRC’s government men approve of the candidates and their appointment. Nominally, the Pope has veto authority over the nominations, but it’s the PRC government men who nominate. Since 2018—when the agreement was signed—there have been six bishops ordained, and 40 dioceses still have no bishop. That’s how well this arrangement is working.

Despite that, the Holy See Press Office had this:

The Vatican Party is committed to continuing a respectful and constructive dialogue with the Chinese Party for a productive implementation of the Accord and further development of bilateral relations, with a view to fostering the mission of the Catholic Church and the good of the Chinese people[.]

Furthermore, Pope Francis views [the agreement] as a necessary compromise to keep Chinese Catholics united. But how is treating Chinese Catholics differently from all other Catholics in any way unifying? How does that continued separation of Chinese Catholics from the Universal Church in any way support either the Church’s mission or the spiritual welfare of ordinary Chinese?