Some in the Washington legislature appear to be serious about overturning 1998's popular ballot measure I-200 that banned racial preferences in state hiring and university admissions.
Yesterday's Seattle Times editorial applauded the legislators' efforts to overturn the will of the voters and reintroduce racial discrimination in academic admissions:
Initiative 200 remains an embarrassment and was mentioned by observers as a troublesome issue in the recent search for a new University of Washington president.It's a shame that the Times editorialists are embarrassed by the 58% of Washington's electorate who voted that university applicants should be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their transcripts.
Today's Times includes three letters to the editor all opposing the effort to reinstitute government racism against the wishes of the people. One of these letters was mine. I made the same point I've made here before:
the only way the University of Washington could accurately reflect the diversity of the state's ethnic composition would be to reduce Asian enrollment by three-quarters, and to admit a lot more Caucasians and a few from other minorities. I hope this is not what this proposal's sponsors have in mind.I realize in hindsight that this line could have been both more accurate and more effective if instead of saying simply "a lot more Caucasians", I had said "a lot more less-qualified Caucasians"