Name: Anonymous 2007-07-26 12:06 ID:T3p6Whle
Perhaps it would do us some good to put things in perspective.
Although many a white conservative is seeking to make more of it than is justified, the recent "reverse discrimination" case arising from New Orleans--in which the city's first black D.A., Eddie Jordan, apparently fired 53 whites in his office and replaced them with African Americans--does not, in fact, signify some larger social trend.
It does not indicate a pattern, whereby persons of color are wielding their power to oppress the white majority. It is not evidence of that much-vaunted social pendulum having swung in the other direction, nor proof of the societal equivalence between anti-white and anti-black discrimination. Not by a long shot.
Though Jordan's sledgehammer approach to achieving diversity in the D.A.'s office was clumsy, wrongheaded, and guaranteed to bring about the successful lawsuit just completed (in which 43 of the employees were awarded $1.9 million in back pay and damages), it is remarkable not so much for its commonality but rather for the infrequency with which such things happen.
Whereas discrimination against folks of color rarely makes the news at all, unless it involves a case as blatant as, say, Texaco or Denny's from a few years back, the relative rarity of anti-white bias propels cases like this to the status of front-page news. It is the equivalent of the white tiger at the zoo, or two-headed baby at the sideshow carnival: fascinating precisely because we rarely have ever seen such a thing before.
Having heard dozens, if not hundreds of white men (and occasionally women) complain about being the victims of reverse discrimination over the years, I long ago developed a simple method for separating those that might have some merit from those that were entirely spurious: namely, when confronted with such a claim, I ask the person forwarding the complaint a few obvious questions: questions that any real victim of discrimination should easily be able to answer.
First, what was the company or government agency, or contractor to which you had applied for a position or contract, which you believe discriminated against you?
Second, when did you apply for this job or contract?
And, finally, who was hired or given the contract ahead of you, and what evidence do you have that they were less qualified, objectively than you for the position?
Three simple questions, and yet, typically, none of them (and certainly never the last one) has ever been answered by those to whom I put the challenge.
When asked such specifics they routinely "forget" the details, usually retreating to the tried but true argument that they were "told" by the employer or contractor in question how much more qualified they were, but how, unfortunately, the employer was being "forced" to hire a minority.
Studies have indeed found that employers will occasionally tell rejected white applicants exactly this thing, even though no federal or state law requires, encourages or even allows such a practice. Indeed, making a hiring decision solely on the basis of race has always been illegal, and that is not how much maligned affirmative action programs operate, or have ever operated.
Fact is, real evidence of anti-white bias in the workplace is extraordinarily rare. Although whites, when asked, are twice as likely to believe that reverse discrimination--as opposed to its old-fashioned counterpart--is common, few whites actually claim to have been victimized.
In fact, no more than thirteen percent (and as few as two percent) of whites polled say they have ever lost out on a job to a person of color, for any reason, let alone because of unfair racial preferences.
Consistent with this data, only about four percent of all discrimination claims filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) are filed by whites alleging to have been the victims of racial bias. From 1995 to 2000, approximately 183,000 race discrimination cases were resolved by the EEOC, of which 167,000 were brought by persons of color, while fewer than 17,000 were brought by whites.
So, even though whites outnumbered folks of color in the workforce by more than two-to-one, there were nearly ten times more discrimination claims filed by persons of color during that period.
And make no mistake, this disparity does not merely signify that whites have thicker skin, or are somehow less likely to file suit, even when they might have a strong case. Indeed, white men are as quick to file suit as anyone else, when the evidence supports a claim. As Fred Pincus notes in his book, Reverse Discrimination: Dismantling the Myth, white men make up the clear majority of age discrimination claims filed with the EEOC.
In other words, when they feel aggrieved and have sufficient evidence to actually press a legal claim, whites (and white men in particular) have no aversion to seeking legal remedy; suggesting that in the area of racial bias, there is simply insufficient indication of having been victimized, such that might warrant seeking redress in the courts.
Finally, it should be noted that claims of reverse discrimination are notoriously less credible than claims of bias filed by persons of color-even when both are presented to courts of law. So, for example, discrimination claims brought by people of color are approximately seventy-two percent (almost three-fourths) more likely to succeed at trial than claims brought by whites, alleging reverse discrimination.
Indeed, evidence going back several years suggests that whites often assume that the person of color hired over them was less qualified, even when objective evidence suggests otherwise.
As just one example, consider the case of Tom Wood, one of the instigators of an anti-affirmative action initiative in California in the mid-90s. Wood claimed at the time to have been rejected for a faculty position at San Francisco State University, and not only that, but more to the point, passed over so as to make way for a clearly less qualified woman of color. Yet, it turned out that Wood had never even applied for the job, and that had done so, he would have lost out anyway, seeing as how the woman in question had far more scholarly publications and teaching experience than he did.
Or for that matter, consider Jennifer Gratz, the lead plaintiff in a reverse discrimination suit against the University of Michigan, which was resolved in her favor in June 2003.
Despite her successful claim against the undergraduate school of Literature, Arts and Sciences, it is impossible to claim that she was actually victimized so as to make way for less qualified students of color. After all, the year she was rejected, there were not only several dozen students of color who got in to Michigan ahead of her, despite having had lower test scores and grades than she, but there were also well over a thousand other whites with lower scores and grades who were also admitted ahead of her.
Furthermore, there were approximately two thousand other whites who were rejected along with Gratz, despite having had higher scores and grades than she.
Although many a white conservative is seeking to make more of it than is justified, the recent "reverse discrimination" case arising from New Orleans--in which the city's first black D.A., Eddie Jordan, apparently fired 53 whites in his office and replaced them with African Americans--does not, in fact, signify some larger social trend.
It does not indicate a pattern, whereby persons of color are wielding their power to oppress the white majority. It is not evidence of that much-vaunted social pendulum having swung in the other direction, nor proof of the societal equivalence between anti-white and anti-black discrimination. Not by a long shot.
Though Jordan's sledgehammer approach to achieving diversity in the D.A.'s office was clumsy, wrongheaded, and guaranteed to bring about the successful lawsuit just completed (in which 43 of the employees were awarded $1.9 million in back pay and damages), it is remarkable not so much for its commonality but rather for the infrequency with which such things happen.
Whereas discrimination against folks of color rarely makes the news at all, unless it involves a case as blatant as, say, Texaco or Denny's from a few years back, the relative rarity of anti-white bias propels cases like this to the status of front-page news. It is the equivalent of the white tiger at the zoo, or two-headed baby at the sideshow carnival: fascinating precisely because we rarely have ever seen such a thing before.
Having heard dozens, if not hundreds of white men (and occasionally women) complain about being the victims of reverse discrimination over the years, I long ago developed a simple method for separating those that might have some merit from those that were entirely spurious: namely, when confronted with such a claim, I ask the person forwarding the complaint a few obvious questions: questions that any real victim of discrimination should easily be able to answer.
First, what was the company or government agency, or contractor to which you had applied for a position or contract, which you believe discriminated against you?
Second, when did you apply for this job or contract?
And, finally, who was hired or given the contract ahead of you, and what evidence do you have that they were less qualified, objectively than you for the position?
Three simple questions, and yet, typically, none of them (and certainly never the last one) has ever been answered by those to whom I put the challenge.
When asked such specifics they routinely "forget" the details, usually retreating to the tried but true argument that they were "told" by the employer or contractor in question how much more qualified they were, but how, unfortunately, the employer was being "forced" to hire a minority.
Studies have indeed found that employers will occasionally tell rejected white applicants exactly this thing, even though no federal or state law requires, encourages or even allows such a practice. Indeed, making a hiring decision solely on the basis of race has always been illegal, and that is not how much maligned affirmative action programs operate, or have ever operated.
Fact is, real evidence of anti-white bias in the workplace is extraordinarily rare. Although whites, when asked, are twice as likely to believe that reverse discrimination--as opposed to its old-fashioned counterpart--is common, few whites actually claim to have been victimized.
In fact, no more than thirteen percent (and as few as two percent) of whites polled say they have ever lost out on a job to a person of color, for any reason, let alone because of unfair racial preferences.
Consistent with this data, only about four percent of all discrimination claims filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) are filed by whites alleging to have been the victims of racial bias. From 1995 to 2000, approximately 183,000 race discrimination cases were resolved by the EEOC, of which 167,000 were brought by persons of color, while fewer than 17,000 were brought by whites.
So, even though whites outnumbered folks of color in the workforce by more than two-to-one, there were nearly ten times more discrimination claims filed by persons of color during that period.
And make no mistake, this disparity does not merely signify that whites have thicker skin, or are somehow less likely to file suit, even when they might have a strong case. Indeed, white men are as quick to file suit as anyone else, when the evidence supports a claim. As Fred Pincus notes in his book, Reverse Discrimination: Dismantling the Myth, white men make up the clear majority of age discrimination claims filed with the EEOC.
In other words, when they feel aggrieved and have sufficient evidence to actually press a legal claim, whites (and white men in particular) have no aversion to seeking legal remedy; suggesting that in the area of racial bias, there is simply insufficient indication of having been victimized, such that might warrant seeking redress in the courts.
Finally, it should be noted that claims of reverse discrimination are notoriously less credible than claims of bias filed by persons of color-even when both are presented to courts of law. So, for example, discrimination claims brought by people of color are approximately seventy-two percent (almost three-fourths) more likely to succeed at trial than claims brought by whites, alleging reverse discrimination.
Indeed, evidence going back several years suggests that whites often assume that the person of color hired over them was less qualified, even when objective evidence suggests otherwise.
As just one example, consider the case of Tom Wood, one of the instigators of an anti-affirmative action initiative in California in the mid-90s. Wood claimed at the time to have been rejected for a faculty position at San Francisco State University, and not only that, but more to the point, passed over so as to make way for a clearly less qualified woman of color. Yet, it turned out that Wood had never even applied for the job, and that had done so, he would have lost out anyway, seeing as how the woman in question had far more scholarly publications and teaching experience than he did.
Or for that matter, consider Jennifer Gratz, the lead plaintiff in a reverse discrimination suit against the University of Michigan, which was resolved in her favor in June 2003.
Despite her successful claim against the undergraduate school of Literature, Arts and Sciences, it is impossible to claim that she was actually victimized so as to make way for less qualified students of color. After all, the year she was rejected, there were not only several dozen students of color who got in to Michigan ahead of her, despite having had lower test scores and grades than she, but there were also well over a thousand other whites with lower scores and grades who were also admitted ahead of her.
Furthermore, there were approximately two thousand other whites who were rejected along with Gratz, despite having had higher scores and grades than she.