| Site Index:  |
Illinois Education Quotas |
Back: Ed News Main Index |
Illinois (SIU Carbondale): The U.S. Department of Justice is threatening to sue Southern Illinois University for it's use of racially exclusive fellowships. No white males at the Carbondale, Illinois campus have ever received a fellowship under any of these three race/gender based programs. Read the entire story at SIU Reverse Discrimination (11-11-05) Illinois (SIU Carbondale):
OPINION -- [SIU Professor Jon Bean writes]: I strongly protest the Illinois Board of Higher Education's campaign to promote faculty "diversity," which it falsely equates with skin color or national origin. Most of the current and proposed "steps to increase minority faculty" are unnecessary and unconstitutional. [The last known link to the notice by the Illinois Board of Higher Education as of 10/2/02 was http://www.ibhe.state.il.us/WebHearing/notice.htm ] Minority applicants do not need "special treatment" Faculty surveys show strong support for equal opportunity and "soft" affirmative action (reaching out to all prospective applicants, regardless of race). These same polls reveal strong opposition to faculty hiring preferences. Still, many college administrators and some faculty are biased in favor of minority candidates. Thus, ceterus paribus, the job will sometimes go to a minority candidate over an equally well-qualified non-minority. In short, minority applicants are treated equally well or better than non-minority applicants even without special programs. Moreover, it is the legal responsibility of schools to document past or present discrimination before instituting remedial programs. Constitutional challenges to racially-exclusive programs State universities in Illinois defend the Illinois Minority Graduate Incentive Program (IMGIP) and Illinois Consortium for Educational Opportunity Program (ICEOP) by invoking Justice Lewis Powell's opinion in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978). As Roger Clegg points out, Bakke does not apply to employment discrimination, which is prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Moreover, the courts have rejected both the “diversity” and “role model” rationales for racial preferences in hiring. At any rate, Justice Powell introduced racial diversity as one of many factors a school may consider in judging applicants on a case-by-case basis. Powell emphasized that schools could not use race as the sole determinant of "diversity" nor use it in a wholesale manner to treat all members of a minority group differently from non-minorities. In other words, schools cannot reduce the idea of "diversity" to skin color. Unfortunately, this is exactly what universities have been doing. In subsequent decisions, most notably Croson (1989) and Adarand (1995), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all racial preferences are subject to strict judicial scrutiny. States must show how their programs remedy past discrimination by particular state institutions; they may not resort to general claims of overcoming "societal discrimination" (the governing case in this Circuit is People Who Care v. Rockford Board of Education). Furthermore, under the strict scrutiny standard, remedial measures must be "narrowly tailored" to achieve a compelling state interest. Otherwise, they violate the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII). The courts have ruled that the following reasons are NOT compelling enough to justify racial discrimination by the state:
A strong case could be made that the IMGIP and ICEOP scholarship programs are unconstitutional based on the above case law (the Fourth Circuit Court has struck down similar race-exclusive scholarships). Furthermore, employment discrimination from “targeted hiring” of minority candidates clearly violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. If lawsuits have not already been filed, I would encourage concerned citizens to challenge the legality of these racial set-asides. Even more troubling, these minority scholarship programs require beneficiaries to "seek and accept" faculty positions within the State of Illinois. Do these candidates compete for jobs in open searches (legal) or do they receive jobs set aside for them (illegal)? Many state universities, including my own, have minority recruitment money to provide departments with an "incentive" to interview and hire minority faculty. During budgetary crises, when money is not available for competitive searches, will colleges conduct job searches open only to minorities? The original goal of affirmative action was to enlarge applicant pools, and hence the quality of the finalists, rather than limit them by accepting anything less than the “best-qualified” candidate. Other forms of "diversity" Justice Powell's notion of diversity was not exclusively racial; he was concerned with allowing universities to consider many factors to achieve intellectual diversity. But by focusing monomaniacally on race, universities have overlooked other groups that are severely underrepresented on college faculty, thus giving lie to their professed concern for "diversity." For example, faculty surveys highlight the near-absence of Republican and/or conservative faculty in the arts and humanities. For the shocking figures, see "One Faculty Indivisible," Wall Street Journal, 30 August 2002 "Republican Professors? Sure There's One," Wall Street Journal, 11 May 1998]; and David Horowitz,“Missing Diversity on America’s Campuses,” 3 September 2002, My research into the political affiliation of Liberal Arts Faculty at Southern Illinois University Carbondale confirms this pattern: 105 Democrats versus 11 Republicans. A partial breakdown by department underscores this “statistical disparity”:
True, there may be reasons other than employment discrimination for the under-representation of Republicans, just as there are reasons for the under-representation of certain minority groups. Yet, based on the diversity rationale, universities ought to be concerned with a "hostile environment" that produces so few Republican professors. (As an aside, it’s interesting that the Board of Higher Education Act limits the number of members who are “affiliated with the same political party” as the Governor ( Board of Higher Education Act) In conclusion, it is wrong for the state to define “diversity” by race and it is illegal for it to pursue policies that favor one group over another. A much more positive and effective approach would be to concentrate on improving the pre-collegiate education of minority students in Illinois. The IBHE's Report of the Committee on Access and Diversity (August 2001) emphasizes this point. Only then will the state have a large pool of minority applicants able to compete on an equal basis with non-minorities. [END SIU Prof. Jon Bean's unedited comments.] [This posting represents the complete, undedited comments by Professor Bean as published on the Illinois Leader web site (www.illinoisleader.com) on 10/2/02]
Last Known Link to Original Story: Illinois (UI Chicago, Urbana): After pressing lawsuits against racial and gender quotas at the University of Michigan, the Washington-based Center for Equal Opportunity and allied anti-quota organizations have turned their attention to state-supported universities and colleges in Illinois, particularly the University of Illinois (Chicago) and the University of Illinois (Urbana). "Discrimination against anyone is wrong", said Roger Clegg, general counsel for the Center for Equal Opportunity in Washington, DC. "Universities should not have different admissions standards" based upon race, ethnicity, or gender, according to Clegg. "They can go beyond SAT scores, but they should not consider race or ethnicity. The public has the right to know if racial or ethnic preferences are used by state universities in their admissions policies." In defense of racial quotas in college admissions, the University of Illinois, Chicago campus, offers up the story of a black student, Gloria Smith. According to the Chicago Sun Times, Gloria Smith struggled through high school and had a disappointing experience at Chicago's Loyola University. Said Smith of her experience at Loyola: "I felt like a number. The campus wasn't diverse enough. And I defaulted on my Loyola student loan." However, after defaulting on her loan commitment, when Gloria Smith wanted to switch to the University of Illinois at Chicago, a group calling themselves "The African-American Academic Network" exerted its influence to obtain a tuition waiver for Ms. Smith. UIC also has other race-based assistance programs such as the Latin American Recruitment and Educational Services Program, and the Native American Support Program.The University of Illinois at Urbana also offers at least four race-based academic preferences programs for incoming students, as well as more than 30 undergraduate support programs which specifically exclude white or European American students from the program's benefits. University of Illinois President James J. Stukel is quoted as saying "The college experience is enhanced by diversity and produces a richer undergraduate experience that introduces students to different points of view" [particularly anti-white, anti-European American points of view], as reported in the Chicago Sun Times 07/05/99. Lascelles Anderson, a University of Illinois (Chicago) professor of education and director of the Center for Urban Educational Development and Research said "[Admissions quotas] are supportable in Illinois. But we need to move away from test scores and use other factors - including leadership potential - for admissions decisions." Thus, Professor Anderson tacitly condemned academic testing for knowledge in favor of "biometrics" or "psychometrics" which have the effect of negating the academic achievements of students who have studied hard and who are able to pass the rigorous academic tests which demonstrate their retention of knowledge. (based on Chicago Sun Times article by Lon Grahnke 07/05/99)[no link] llinois (Chicago): "There was a well organized effort to boycott Ward Connerly’s April 28, 1999, 7:00 PM speech at Loyola University in Chicago. The president of the sponsoring organization, the university’s Republican Club, Mr. Manoj Mishra, reported that many of the 400 flyers that club members posted around the campus were torn down and replaced with flyers announcing a rally for someone on death row. He also received reports that students were getting email messages that libeled Mr. Connerly and urged them to boycott his speech. Mr. Mishra said he was going to file a formal complaint with Loyola administration officials. "Previous speeches that the club had sponsored that were not boycotted drew far larger crowds. For example, a recent speech by Dan Quayle was attended by over 1,200 students and faculty without suffering from the rogue tactics to which Ward Connerly was subjected. Due to the organized efforts of the rogue students, Mr. Connerly’s speech was attended by only about 15 students, many of whom were club members, and by one alumni, Dave Diersen of Wheaton, Illinois (MBA-1976), and his wife, Karen. No members of the university news media or the Chicago news media were present to cover the event. "Nevertheless, Mr. Connerly gave an outstanding speech which included an update of his efforts and the efforts of the American Civil Rights Institute to end race and gender based preferences in America. After successes in California and Washington, he is currently focusing on Florida. Michigan will be next. He answered questions from the attendees without any of evasiveness or duplicity heard so often from politicians." (Special to Adversity.Net 04/28/99 by Dave Diersen, Loyola alumnus.) (Mr. Manoj Mishra, president of the university's Republican Club, can be reached at 773-761-5601 or 773-508-8603.) Illinois
(Rockford): "A federal judge has ordered strict new racial guidelines for the Rockford, Ill., schools in an unusually ambitious desegregation order that will reach into virtually every classroom in the 27,000-student district. "U.S. Magistrate Judge P. Michael Mahoney directed the district to close the achievement gap between white and minority students by half and meet strict racial quotas in courses across the curriculum." [Judge Mahoney’s order specifically did not address the reasons that minority students may be performing more poorly than non-minority students. Therefore, Mahoney’s order says, in essence, "improve the performance of minority students regardless of the reasons for their poor performance."] "The decision [by Judge Mahoney] represents the last leg of a multipart remedial order in a 7-year-old desegregation lawsuit against Illinois' third-largest district. In 1993, the judge found the district guilty of systematic discrimination against African-American and Hispanic students [based solely upon government-imposed racial head-counting requirements]. (See Education Week, Nov. 10, 1993.) "Besides the more traditional issues of racial balance among schools, the case has focused intensely on disparities in student achievement and participation in honors classes, gifted and talented programs, and even cheerleading squads.
"In the latest part of the remedial order, handed down this month, the judge said the
[Rockville] district is to blame for at least 50 percent of the disparity in
standardized-test scores between white students and minority students, who are defined as
African-Americans and Hispanics. White children in Rockford typically score about 35
percentage points above blacks and Hispanics on such tests. [Judge Mahoney failed to
address the reasons for this disparity, nor did the judge seek to correct attitudinal or
family issues that may mitigate the poor performance of the minority students. Instead, he
simply dictated unilaterally that the school district shall implement means to improve the
performance of the poor-performing minority students. Nor did Judge Mahoney’s order
make available any funding for correcting the poor educational attitudes of minority
students in this district.]" (Education Week, 06/19/99, by Caroline Hendrie)
END of Illinois Reverse Discrimination in Education |
