Repeal of race preference programs: Effects on Asians andpublicreactions

[Barksdale, Yvette]

Rick Duncan writes: 

 

"There is no debtor race, nor a creditor race."

 

Hi Rick: 

 

This is a neat trick.  

 

Are you saying that you have not inherited any benefits from the
discrimination of the past?  Question - did your parents and
grandparents receive benefits? And, if so, did they transfer any of them
to you?  

 

If the answer is yes - is it fair that you get to not only keep it all,
but leverage it into greater gains. 

 

Perhaps an analogy might be the efforts to return property looted by the
Nazis to the descendants of the holocaust survivors. Or  is the argument
that these efforts were  misguided, because the current owners of the
property were not the perpetrators of the Holocaust. And, the
descendants of the Holocaust victims were not themselves the Holocaust
victims.   

 

No debtors or creditors there either?  (And formal property rights are
not an answer.  They are simply the law's response to that particular
problem. Question - what should the law's response be to America's
racial history (which went on for centuries, by the way). 

 

 

yb

 

 

 

***/////////////////////////////////////////***

 

Professor Yvette M. Barksdale

The John Marshall Law School

315 S. Plymouth Ct. 

Chicago, IL 60604

(312) 427-2737 (phone)

(312) 427-9974 (fax)

 

***/////////////////////////////////////////***

-----Original Message-----
From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Duncan
Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 8:20 PM
To: conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: RE: Repeal of race preference programs: Effects on Asians
andpublicreactions

 

Sandy, as hard as it may be for some to believe, opponents of AA that I
am familiar with oppose it in principle, because they sincerely believe
that government should not classify people on the basis of race. Not
even to make up for historical discrimination. Their is no debtor race,
nor a creditor race.

 

MLK won the debate! People believe that they should be judged on the
merits, not on the color of their skin. I think this is what Ward
Connerly believes. I think it is what Nino believes. I hope it is what
Alito believes. And it is what I believe.

 

 

Rick

Sanford Levinson <SLevinson at law.utexas.edu> wrote:

	Rick writes, "There is no more reason to think that white
opponents of affirmative action oppose it out of self interest than to
think that black supporters of affirmative action support it out of self
interest. "   What is wrong about assuming that some (many) black
supporters of AA do it "out of self interest" and, similarly, that some
(many) "white opponents of aa oppose it out of self interest"?  Isn't
self-interest a good starting point for trying to figure out why people
feel passionately about certain public policies that have distributive
conseuencees?  If affirmative action wasn't perceived by many (most)
African-Americans as serving their interests (putting to one side
whether they are correct in that view), then why indeed would they
support it.  Similarly, if aa wasn't perceived by many (most) white
opponents as disserving their interests, why would they care so deeply?
We'll never know if Ms. Gratz would have devoted a couple of years of
her life to getting rid of it had she not been rejected by Michigan and
felt that she had been dealt a material blow.

	 

	sandy  

	 





Rick Duncan 
Welpton Professor of Law 
University of Nebraska College of Law 
Lincoln, NE 68583-0902

 


"It's a funny thing about us human beings: not many of us doubt God's
existence and then start sinning. Most of us sin and then start doubting
His existence."  --J. Budziszewski (The Revenge of Conscience)

 

"Once again the ancient maxim is vindicated, that the perversion of the
best is the worst." -- Id.

  

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