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National
Bar Association Denounces
Bush's
Fight Against Educational Diversity
WASHINGTON
– The National Bar Association (NBA) today denounced the Bush
Administration for its decision to file a brief with the U.S.
Supreme Court in opposition to the University of Michigan’s
affirmative action policies.
“President
Bush wants us to ignore generations of prejudice and
discrimination,” said Malcolm S. Robinson, President of NBA.
“Bush claims that he supports diversity but he is
hindering, if not destroying, one of the few means of securing it.
It is clear that Bush does not believe that diversity on college
campuses is a compelling governmental issue.”
“By
taking this position against the University of Michigan case and
filing this brief, he is condemning affirmative action without
actually having to take an official stance on it,” said
Robinson. “How can we ensure that our schools remain diverse and
that minority students have the opportunity to reach the levels of
higher education, without serious efforts to make amends for the
racism that has held them back for decades? For President Bush to
make opposition of affirmative action the official policy of his
administration, he is sending a message to the American people
that true diversity and true equality are not worth working
for.”
The
U.S. Supreme Court is currently reviewing the two cases Grutter
v. Bollinger and Gratz
v. Bollinger, which involve the University of Michigan’s law
and undergraduate programs. The cases call to question public
universities’ use of race as a factor in the admissions process.
The outcome of this ruling could overturn the 1978 Bakke decision
which allowed race to be considered with the intent to promote
diversity on university campuses.
“The
Bush Administration calls for fairness, yet it is willing to allow
special privileges for some applicants like those whose parents
are alums or those who excel in sports and produce revenue for
athletic programs,” said Robinson. “Justice Thurgood Marshall
saw fit to support affirmative action in the Bakke decision.
Unfortunately, we have yet to reach a point in our society where
we no longer need these measures to provide for equality and
diversity, it is amazing that President Bush does not see that.”
The
National Bar Association, established in 1925, is the oldest and
largest association of attorneys of color, with more than 18,000
members worldwide.
Contact:
National Bar Association, 1225 11th Street, N.W., Washington,
D.C. 20001; www.nationalbar.org
/
Megan Alexa
Carpenter @ 202-842-3900 Email:
mcarpenter@nationalbar.org
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How Affirmative Action Helped George W. George W. Bush is all for diversity, he explained last week,
but he doesn't care for the way they do it at the University of
Michigan. The Administration has asked the Supreme Court to rule
the Michigan system unconstitutional because of the scoring method
it uses for rating applicants "At the undergraduate
level," said Bush, "African-American students and some
Hispanic students and Native American students receive 20 points
out of a maximum of 150, not because of any academic achievement
or life experience but solely because they are African American,
Hispanic or Native American."
If our President had the slightest sense of irony, he might
have paused to ask himself, "Wait a minute. How did I get
into Yale?" It wasn't because of any academic achievement:
his high school record was ordinary. It wasn't because of his life
experience — prosperous family, fancy prep school — which was
all too familiar at Yale. It wasn't his SAT scores: 566 verbal and
640 math.—Time
Essay 2003
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1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus
Created
By Charles C. Mann
I’m
a big fan of Charles Mann’s previous
book
1491:
New Revelations of the Americas Before
Columbus, in which he
provides a sweeping and provocative
examination of North and South America
prior to the arrival of Christopher
Columbus. It’s exhaustively researched
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anything but exhausting to read. With
his follow-up,
1493, Mann has taken it to a
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groundbreaking work of Alfred Crosby
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Mann has written nothing less than the
story of our world: how a planet of what
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Mann not only talked to countless
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prose is masterful. In telling the
improbable story of how Spanish and
Chinese cultures collided in the
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takes us to the island of Mindoro whose
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small bays, one next to another like
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the spread of malaria, the potato,
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cane have disrupted and convulsed the
planet and will continue to do so until
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or at least close-to-integrated Earth.
Whether or not the human instigators of
all this remarkable change will survive
the process they helped to initiate more
than five hundred years ago remains,
Mann suggests in this monumental and
revelatory book, an open question. |
* * * * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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