Liberals Like Race-based Politics

In the State of Michigan Jennifer Gratz and “wealthy black Republican” Ward Connerly are campaigning to pass the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, Proposition 2 on the ballot. They are just two people. Against them, says Tamar Lewin in The New York Times is the whole elite class of Michigan.

Opposition to the measure is led by One United Michigan, an unusually broad coalition that includes Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm, a Democrat, and her Republican challenger, Dick DeVos, as well as unions, churches, businesses and higher education and civil rights groups. It has raised and spent $3.3 million.

What does it mean when the whole governmental and educated elite comes out against color-blindness in government?

There is no doubt that the end of affirmative action means fewer blacks and Hispanics at elite universities.

In California, where a similar proposition passed in 1996, the number of black students at the elite public universities has dropped. This fall, 96 of 4,800 freshmen at the University of California, Los Angeles — 2 percent — are black, a 30-year low.

Well, it would, wouldn’t it. The whole point of affirmative action is to hand out desirable public goods by race. But what The New York Times does not show us is the credit side of the ledger.

But that is OK, because the editors of National Review will tell both sides of the story. Certainly, they write, black and Hispanic enrollment has declined at UCLA and Berkeley.

But instead of denying these students an education they deserve, it has simply reapportioned them throughout the UC’s ten-campus system, which serves more than 200,000 students. UC-Riverside and UC-Santa Cruz, for example, have seen large increases in black enrollment.

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The graduation rate for black UC students has doubled over the last decade. That’s because when students are matched to universities without reference to their race, they wind up at schools suited to their educational backgrounds and abilities, and are therefore more likely to succeed. In the UC system today, black-graduation rates are approaching those for whites. At the University of Michigan, however, they lag far behind.

The reason that the nation’s liberal elite remains wedded to affirmative action and quotas is because it likes the power. And in the public sector outcomes really don’t matter.

If a whole generation of black students fails at the University of Michigan, who cares? It won’t hurt liberals. They will continue to feel good about themselves and how their commitment to diversity.