Affirmative action, self-segregation and reform

Here is some great data and research concerning this debate.

Thanks to Ariel Avila for sending me the link to this comprehensive and interesting data on UIUC's makeup.

Published in the Daily Illini on February 27, 2006.

For hundreds of years, this country tortured its own ideals. This country enslaved, segregated, and punished people of color. The acidic and lingering aftertaste of racism has made necessary efforts to wash it away.

The important question is not whether something should be done, but how it should be done.

Affirmative action has not only failed to bring the socio-economic status of the races to equality, but it has hindered the achievement of a secondary goal: the destruction of racial self-segregation.

Race-based affirmative action carries heavy psychological baggage.

First, when whites in suburban high schools are rejected from our University, their parents call to complain that their kid deserves the spot more than a minority they know nothing about. The effect on minorities could be some sense of self-doubt and curiosity whether they were admitted based on their merits.

Some white students question whether certain minorities deserve to be at the same university as them, simply because of their skin. Affirmative action announces and institutionalizes that there is a distinction between the races.

All of these negative psychological side-effects simply increase animosities between the races and reinforce social self-segregation. Let me be clear, these perceptions are mostly based on the ignorance of whites as to the true and noble motivations for affirmative action. But, in this game perceptions are law.

If we can create a system that preserves current levels of diversity, while at the same time enrolls minorities by race-blind means, we will cut the strings of psychological baggage.

An alternative solution is economic-based affirmative action.
A type of economic affirmative action is already covertly practiced in Florida, California, Washington, and most notably in Texas. It is commonly called “affirmative access.”

This plan draws the top 10 percent, or so, from every high school class and grants them automatic admission to public universities in their home-state. Even in situations where the Ten Percent Plan does not grant admission to a desired level of minorities, the system can be tweaked by considering factors such as the resources available to the student’s school district and the education level of their parents. It guarantees admission to the poorest white rural and black urban students.

Because it is blind and based off of merits, it undercuts the moral and legal arguments of reverse discrimination that come from the far right.

One concern about affirmative access is that minority enrollment will fall. But, at UT-Austin blacks were 4.1% and Latinos were 14.5% of the total student body under affirmative action.

Then, in 1996 the 5th Circuit Court ruled in Hopwood v. Texas that public universities must stop using race as an admissions factor. The year after this ruling black enrollment dropped to 2.7% and Latino enrollment slid to 12.6%. The Texas legislature then crafted the Ten Percent Plan, or affirmative access.

After this Plan black enrollment increased back to its original level of 4.1% and Latino enrollment was nearly at its original level with 13.9%.

A book written by former Ivy-league presidents William Bowen and Derek Bok, called The Shape of the River, exposes that 86% of African-American students are middle or upper-middle class at the 28 universities they studied. Affirmative action tends to favor minorities that have already escaped poverty; economic-based admissions would also remedy this.

Polls were conducted in 2003 around the time of Supreme Court cases challenging Michigan’s affirmative action policies. A Los Angeles Times poll showed that 59% of Americans supported economic affirmative action, while just 26% supported race-based affirmative action. Similarly, a Newsweek poll showed a 65% to 26% split in favor of economic affirmative action.

I think it is hard for us to see that affirmative action has failed. The way we measure diversity is by the statistics of how many minorities are enrolled, rather than the more difficult measurement of social integration. Instead of clutching to social policy with a mediocre track record, we need to begin honest and bold reform. Economic affirmative action in the long-run will dilute racial self-segregation on campus and in America.

Billy Joe Mills is a senior in LAS. His columns appear on Monday. He did his own laundry for the first time this last weekend. He can be reached at opinions@dailyillini.com.

Capitalism, Peace and the Middle East

This article was published in the Daily Illini on February 20th, 2006

What creates peace? What can override the historical human instinct to kill another person because their skin, religion or flag is different? A more powerful instinct: greed.

The annual Economic Freedom of the World study by Columbia professor Erik Gartzke and the Fraser Institute shows an overwhelming correlation between capitalism and peace (www.freetheworld.com).

Gartzke found that nations with a low level of economic freedom are 14 times more likely to be in a violent military conflict than nations with a high level.

There are many reasons why capitalism, and not self-righteous alternatives, can produce international peace.

When countries are economically interdependent upon each other via globalization it increases the cost of causing war. If China attacked the United States it would destroy trade not only with the U.S., but also with our allies. China is dependent on us to be a robust market for their exports and we are dependent on them to supply cheap imports. We are further bound by our financial markets, investments, currencies and debt.

It is ironic that many pacifists disdain corporate influence on government policy. It is that influence that would compel Chinese firms to stop its government from attacking the U.S. for fear of losing profits. Self-serving Chinese entrepreneurs will never allow a war with the U.S. Our interests coincide.

Wars used to begin over land. Land used to be the source of wealth for kings and empires. War has always been fought for wealth.

The difference today is that wealth is no longer created from farmland. Rather, abundance is created through the productivity and efficiency of intellectual, physical and financial capital. These things are not attained through war; in fact, they are destroyed.

Capitalism created new channels for human aggression, a new battlefield. War between international corporations has replaced war between countries. Wars of efficiency and CEOs have supplanted wars of bullets and generals. We cannot change the human instinct of greed, but we can change the incentives greed responds to. Capitalism is doing that. It is fundamentally redirecting the pursuits of greed to be non-violent.

The study further states that the top one-fifth of economically free nations have an average per-person income of $25,062, compared to $2,409 for the one-fifth least economically free. Similarly, unemployment is 5.2 percent compared to 13 percent, life expectancy is 77.7 years compared to 52.5 and children's participation in the labor force is 0.1 percent compared to 22.6 percent - all measures favoring free market countries.

Many Islamist attackers are poor and without access to education. Economically comfortable citizens are less likely to turn to violence as an outlet for their frustrations. Further, comfortable citizens are more likely to have access to education, also making them less likely to turn to violence.

The study attempts to tear down the theory that the spread of democracy creates international peace. "When measures of both economic freedom and democracy are included in a statistical study, economic freedom is about 50 times more effective than democracy in diminishing violent conflict."

He further shows that unstable democracies, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, are just as likely to engage in war as any other form of government.

The human desire to vote is forceful, but nothing is more powerful than the human need to gain. President Bush has naively focused resources on expanding democracy in the Middle East, but he should focus on spreading the instincts of the capitalist.

After World War II, learning from their prior blunders, the U.S. bombarded Japan and Germany with economic aid and entrepreneurial spirit. Today, the problems of the Middle East call for a modern Marshall Plan to lift the discouraged Islamic people into hope and capitalism.

The Great Peace will not come about because humans suddenly decide to become nice, as the far left wishes us to believe. Ironically, it will come from raw human greed and the unique ability of capitalism to safely channel that craving.

We will conquer the Middle East. But bombs barely penetrate a society's culture - fundamental change must come from capitalism.

Billy Joe Mills is a senior in LAS, and his mom still does his laundry and sends him frozen meals so he won't starve to death. His column appears on Mondays. He can be reached at opinions@dailyillini.com.

Welcome to the agora

The following is a Point/Counterpoint that appeared in the Daily Illini on February 15, 2006.

Billy Joe Mills

Here is a great archive of historical depictions of Muhammad
POINT: Welcome to the agora

Last week the editor in chief of this paper decided to republish the controversial Danish cartoons that depicted the Prophet Muhammad in many insulting ways.

The cartoons are offensive to Muslims in a way greater than our normal conception of "offensive." They go beyond offensive; they are disgusting and blasphemous. Nearly all editors throughout the world who have printed the cartoons are white Christians who cannot possibly grasp the depth of Muslim sadness espoused by their decisions. This hateful speech is an attack upon a predominantly peaceful religion.

Even so the decision to reprint the articles was correct.

The Danish cartoons caused an asymmetrical response of violence to sweep through the Middle East, people were killed and buildings were burned down.

The cartoons pitted the West's faith in free speech against some of the Middle East's faith in radical Islam. This is exemplified by the Associated Press photo of a Muslim demonstrator carrying a banner reading, "Freedom of Expression is Western Terrorism."

Before being republished, many students on campus did not know the cartoons existed. The simple fact that we are discussing unnerving issues of free speech, censorship, Muhammad, Islam and the West sufficiently proves the newsworthiness of the cartoons. They are inspiring us to debate and to openly exchange controversial and disquieting ideas. Speech that attacks other races or religions should also be printed, so long as that speech can reasonably be said to have some political, intellectual, artistic or emotional value.

If we censor ourselves out of respect and fear of offending, we risk chilling future speech. We must err on the side of speech. If we do not, we allow politeness to domesticate the freedom to speak. If all valuable speech were inoffensive, there would be no need to protect it.

We must allow error and truth to collide, to wage war upon each other. If we are rational, then over time truth will prevail. We should not fear disgusting or offensive speech, because its logic is inherently weak and unable to defeat the logic of truth when honestly challenged by a community of free minds.

But, if we choose to ignore these cartoons then we leave them looming in purgatory, its arguments neither fully alive nor fully defeated. If we elect to censor we allow the erroneous influence of the Dane to remain.

Rather than fearing the speech of this cartoonist, let us confront and torture his ideas. Let us join, Christians, Muslims, Jews and all others, to make his arguments succumb to the better logic of mainstream human progress.

When we allow publication, we allow the Danish cartoonist to freely express himself as an idiot. Allowing the fool to speak is the greatest threat to his ideas.

The cartoons test the limits of our tolerance and commitment to free speech; it can be difficult to see the value of speech that makes good people sick. But, those who seek to censor must show that the harm or offense from publication will be so grave that no remedy can undo the harm, not even more speech.

Censoring speech temporarily silences the symptoms of Islamophobia, but allowing speech will cure the disease. So long as everyone has the opportunity to speak, the marketplace of ideas is self-correcting. Given time, the marketplace itself will censor rotten ideas by triumphing over them.

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Brian Pierce

COUNTERPOINT: Rights and responsibilities

The actions of violent protesters of the Danish cartoons reprinted in the DI recently range from hypocritical to blasphemous to deranged. But while the wrongdoings of Islamist radicals outweigh the wrongdoings of this newspaper's editor in chief, Acton Gorton, they do not excuse them.

Those who would argue that Gorton's decision was a brave defense of free speech argue that an editor of a student newspaper who chooses not to reprint these cartoons is inhibiting future free speech. They argue that if the newspaper is afraid to reprint these cartoons, then the newspaper will also be afraid to engage in some other controversial form of speech in the future that might have value.

By this logic, any time controversial speech arises, an editor of a student newspaper should automatically publish it. There can be no considerations over respect or sensitivity, because such considerations run the risk of inhibiting free speech, a value too important to be compromised.

But this very line of reasoning inhibits free speech. If I were an editor and wanted to write a column about why these cartoons are despicable and ought never to be reprinted, I would be restricted from doing so by this principle of automatic publication. Free speech is not just the expression of an idea, it can also be the free choice not to express an idea deemed objectionable.

Some will argue that this situation is different because it involves allowing the newspaper's readership to decide for themselves what's objectionable and what's not. After all, Gorton himself called the cartoons in the accompanying editorial "bigoted and insensitive." He simply wanted to let his readers see the cartoons that had provoked such a furor around the world.

I will not question his motives, though I do believe they are suspect. Taking him at his word, I still call into question the journalistic value of publishing these cartoons. Nothing is lost by linking to the cartoons online and giving readers the choice to view them.

My friend and colleague, Billy Joe Mills, argues that the journalistic value lies in the fact that the reprinting of these cartoons has engaged a number of students and enhanced public debate on the issue. On its face, the argument seems a little silly to me. We should print controversial items so that we can debate whether or not we should print controversial items?

Apathy among much of the student population is considerable and disheartening, and we should always engage in efforts to spark participation and discussion. But we should never be so tempted to shake unengaged people from complacency that we slap an entire religion and community of believers in the face.

Still, some will argue that it is in the nature of a student newspaper to engage in more radical speech than other newspapers. While it is true that different standards apply, it is not in the nature of a student newspaper to reproduce hateful speech simply to spark a debate. And make no mistake, this is hateful speech. These cartoons break an Islamic prohibition against depicting Muhammad, then equate Islam itself with violence and subjugation.

Just as this newspaper has a legal right to publish these cartoons, it also has a moral responsibility not to insult an entire religious community. Both concepts should be vigorously defended.

The Moral Aristocracy vs. In Defense of Liberty

~Printed in the Daily Illini on February 8th, 2006.

COUNTERPOINT: The Moral Aristocracy

Billy Joe Mills

We are a generation that believes in our rights - our right to underage drinking, abortion, smoking pot, wealth, higher education and others.

Prior to Roe v. Wade, individual states voted on whether abortion should be legal; each state could decide what policy best suited its residents. The issue of abortion was democratically decided. In Roe, the Court made abortion a Constitutional right; it elevated the invented right of privacy to the same status as the speech in this column.

By doing so, it usurped the right of the people to vote on issues not patently settled by the Constitution. They concluded that the wisdom of nine robed sages was superior to the collective wisdom of millions of American voters. The justices, after all, have law degrees. (It is not a coincidence that Rohrscheib will soon graduate from law school).

History has an analogy to Roe: the Dred Scott case created the right of whites to own blacks as property, striking down the Missouri Compromise.

This does not mean the Court should never overrule the will of the majority and force social progress. Brown v. Board of Education was correctly decided because it realized what had been settled by the Civil War and the 14th Amendment: the world's leader of democracy cannot be legitimate unless the races are equal under the law.

Substantive due process and the magical discovery of rights will allow conservatives to summon their own set of rights. This will haunt liberal rightists. In 2000, conservatives invented the right to determine the outcome of the Bush v. Gore election. In Kansas, conservatives are trying to create the right to have their religion taught in schools, under the guise of Intelligent Design.

Concocted rights allow the possibility of conflicting rights. Inevitably, an invented liberal right will collide with an invented conservative right. For instance, the religious right wishes to dream up the right to life of the unborn, which will crash into the right to privacy of a pregnant woman.

Both are arbitrary, whimsical and egotistical opinions. They assume their morals to be universally optimal for all states and all Americans. Both sides cannot be correct, thus we must leave constitutionally unsettled issues to the voters.

The Constitution is not inert. It was not perfectly crafted to suit an eternity of posterity, as Scalia wants us to believe. But it is also not an open door for liberals or conservatives to pull down vague Platonic rights from the clouds to educate us masses on what our morals ought to be, as Rohrscheib wants us to believe.

The Court should judge based on the totality of social scientific facts, minimizing the arbitrariness of the justices' opinions (citing Professor Carmen).

Our best rights are simple or procedural: freedom of speech, due process, trial by jury and a few others. But, when rights are conjured up they become no more persuasive or permanent than legislation. Rights inventors do not believe in the democratic process, they distrust the morals and intelligence of us, the voters.

They sit as philosopher-kings. They are the moral aristocracy.


COUNTERPOINT: In Defense of Liberty

Josh Rohrschieb

My friendship with Billy Joe Mills began as a continuation of arguments from Professor Ira Carmen's Constitutional Law class. Today we are presenting two views on the nature of rights and we both owe Professor Carmen a great debt for challenging us to look for our own answers to these questions.

The Constitution is a living document that responds to the dominant trends in society. Consequently, the interpretation of rights also evolves over time.

Modern right-wing political rhetoric castigates those judges with the audacity to recognize these changes in society by accusing them of "legislating from the bench" and being "activist judges," and my favorite, that these judges are "making up rights."

These rights are not "made up" or "pulled out of thin air." They simply exist as they have for hundreds of years. John Locke called these natural rights. John Adams wrote, "you have rights antecedent to all earthly governments: rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the universe."

Even as they declared our independence, the founders did so citing certain unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

During the debates over the Bill of Rights, the Federalists feared listing certain rights could eventually deny by omission the broad range of liberty retained by the people. In response to this fear, Madison crafted the Ninth Amendment, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

The Ninth Amendment was a key source in protecting the right of privacy. Forty years ago in Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court overturned a statewide ban on selling contraceptives because it violated the privacy right of married couples. While some would say the Warren Court was "making up" the right to privacy, by any modern standard this sort of government regulation is far too invasive.

It is irrational to insist that merely because the word privacy does not appear in the constitution, there is no Constitutional right to privacy. Privacy interests are also protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments. According to Justice Brandeis, "privacy is the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized man."

It is curious that conservatives, who in one breath claim to advocate small government, in the next contend that protections from tyrannical government intrusion do not exist unless those protections are specifically expressed word for word in the Constitution.

These are often the same conservatives who believe the government power should be just narrow enough to fit through the bedroom door.

For the moment I find comfort in a legal truism I heard from one of my other favorite professors, "the Constitution means whatever the hell five Justices on the Supreme Court say it means at any given time." Champions of personal liberty can only hope the new Roberts Court will continue to interpret the constitution respecting our continued evolution as a society.