[peyton randolph]

I see many on the web are exercised about Harriet Miers' support for affirmative action in the private setting of support for resolutions of the Texas Bar urging quotas in hiring at private law firms. It is not a policy with which I would agree either, but it also not a matter of constitutional law, unless under Brentwood the action of the Texas Bar in urging private firms to set strict goals has converted into a state action.

The State Bar of Texas is an administrative agency of the judicial branch in Texas.

In addition, Miers as President of the Bar strongly supported quotas on the Bar's board of directors that required the appointment at that time of 4 minority or female attorneys to the Board. That would be a specific quota of an administrative agency of the State of Texas...not a policy urging private firms to hire more minorities and women.

Hewitt - you've just been b*tch-slapped by another SMU Law alumnus.

[.cnI redruM]

That, right there, made me hold my nose and side with the pompous and odious George Will on the Miers nomination.

[Stellar Dendrite]

Hugh Hewitt makes Rush Limbaugh look like a Bush basher.

Peyton, thanks for pointing this out. I saw Jonah @NRO mention this earlier.

Also, here is another story about Miers supporting affirmative action for the Dallas Fire Department:


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1498195/posts?q=1&&page=201
"Miers' time on Dallas City Council provides some insight"
Miers was one of 10 Dallas council members to unanimously approve a 1989 agenda item that revised minimum height, weight and vision requirements for Dallas firefighters to facilitate "promotion of certain ranks in the Fire Department," particularly women.

The agenda item's title: "Implementation of Fire Department Affirmative Action Plan."

[vbmoneyspender]

I am frankly astonished that Miers could have supported the policy given that quotas constitute per se violations of the Constitution.

[vbmoneyspender]

If petitioner's purpose is to assure within its student body some specified percentage of a particular group merely because of its race or ethnic origin, such a preferential purpose must be rejected not as insubstantial but as facially invalid. Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake. This the Constitution forbids. E. g., Loving v. Virginia, supra, at 11; McLaughlin v. Florida, supra, at 196; Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke