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To check or not to check the Asian box? That is the pointed choice faced by Asian-American students applying to gain admission to what are supposed to be the most tolerant places on Earth, the nation's colleges. The Associated Press ran a report on Asian students of mixed parentage checking "white," if possible, on their applications to avoid outing themselves as Asians. The Princeton Review Student Advantage Guide counsels Asian-American students not to check the race box and warns against sending a photo. In a culture that makes so much of celebrating ethnic heritage, especially of racial minorities, and that...

The Berkeley College Republicans have taken a strong stance against a proposed law that would allow, among other things, race to be taken into consideration during the admissions process. They say on a Facebook event page: "The Berkeley College Republicans firmly believe measuring any admit's merit based on race is intrinsically racist." In this note I'll show that their belief is wrong. Not only is the use of race in admissions not intrinsically racist - the failure to consider race and other similar factors is intrinsically racist. This is not some subjective interpretation of histories of oppression. This is not...

It's meant to be racist, and it's meant to be discriminatory. But the controversial "Increase Diversity Bake Sale" hosted by the Berkeley College Republicans is still on, the club's president said, despite "grossly misguided comments" and threats aimed toward supporters of the University of California Berkeley student group.During the sale, scheduled for Tuesday, baked goods will be sold to white men for $2, Asian men for $1.50, Latino men for $1, black men for $0.75 and Native American men for $0.25. All women will get $0.25 off those prices.The bake sale is meant to draw attention to pending legislation that...

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Hear that? It's the escalating cry of American employers and workers trying to hold on to their health care benefits in the age of stifling Obama health insurance mandates: Gangway! Gangway! Save me! Waive me!Obamacare refugees first began beating down the exit doors in October 2010. As I've documented since last fall, waiver-mania started with McDonald's and Jack in the Box; spread to Dish Networks, hair salon chain Regis Corp and resort giant Universal Orlando; took hold among every major Big Labor organization from the AFL-CIO to the CWA to the SEIU; roped in the nationalized health care promoters at...

On Friday evening the Department of Health and Human Services posted on its website 221 newly approved waivers from various provisions of ObamaCare, and for some reason, chose to forego issuing a press release celebrating the occasion. That brings the total to 1,372 businesses and 7 entire states that have now received exemptions from the law, while the rest of America bears its full oppressive weight, as many plaintively plea: Where’s MY Waiver? The waiver fiasco presents a significant problem for ObamaCare’s supporters in that while many Americans are still largely unaware of many of its most burdensome provisions, as...

Like all too many Americans, Mark Almlie was laid off in the spring of 2009 when his workplace downsized. He has been searching for an appropriate position ever since, replying to more than 500 job postings without success. But Mr. Almlie, despite a sterling education and years of experience, has faced an obstacle that does not exist in most professions: He is a single pastor, in a field where those doing the hiring overwhelmingly prefer married people and, especially, married men with children. Mr. Almlie, 37, has been shocked, he says, at what he calls unfair discrimination, based mainly on...

ScienceDaily (Dec. 10, 2010) — Psychologists have found that George Clooney may be even luckier than previously thought…Research at the University of Abertay Dundee discovered that as women become more financially independent, they want an older, more attractive male partner. Studies have previously found that women place greater emphasis on whether a man can provide for them, while men place more importance on good looks. The new study revealed that as women earn more and become more independent, their tastes actually change. The finding suggests that greater financial independence gives women greater confidence in choosing their partner. Instinctive preferences for...

U.S. students had a much harder time getting into American graduate schools this past year than did their peers from China and the rest of the world. And while 1 year is far from a trend, a new report by the Council of Graduate Schools raises the question of how well Americans stack up against international students. Overall, the report says, 3% more international students received offers of admission for the 2010–11 academic year than in the previous year. That's the fifth increase in the past 6 years. But the survey from the Washington, D.C.,–based organization also found that 1%...

Last week, The Wall Street Journal carried an op-ed piece written by Sen. James Webb, D-Va. "A plethora of government-enforced diversity policies have marginalized many white workers," wrote Webb. "The time has come to cease the false arguments and allow every American the benefit of a fair chance at the future." Although the sound bite from his essay may be distressing to those traditionally underrepresented and his comments came on the heels of last week's poorly handled Shirley Sherrod incident, which illustrated a lack of diversity management in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the White House, I think, in...

"A plethora of government-enforced diversity policies have marginalized many white workers. The time has come to cease the false arguments and allow every American the benefit of a fair chance at the future . . . In an odd historical twist that all Americans see but few can understand, many programs allow recently arrived immigrants to move ahead of similarly situated whites whose families have been in the country for generations." -- Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), in a Wall Street Journal column calling for an end to government-run diversity programs

"To have the same chance of gaining admission as a black student with a SAT score of 1100, a Hispanic student otherwise equally matched in background characteristics would have to have 1230, a white student a 1410, and an Asian student a 1550."

Affirmative Action for Effort Malcolm A. Kline, June 7, 2010 With their genius for expanding failed government programs, academics have concocted a way to apply affirmative action more expansively. Simply put, Richard D. Kahlenberg, in a June 4, 2010 essay in The Chronicle Review suggests that “universities consider how far a student has come as well as what her raw scores are� on the SAT. Kahlenberg is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. The Chronicle Review is published by the Chronicle of Higher Education. “Thomas J. Espenshade, a professor of sociology at Princeton University, and his co-author Alexandria Walton...

Zero interest and faith are not words one commonly associates with credit cards. They do have a place in discussions about the iFreedom Plus MasterCard, tailored to meet the religious requirements of Canada’s Islamic community and recently launched by Toronto company UM Financial. “There are clients in the market looking for structured products that are compliant,” from credit cards to mortgages, said Omar Kalair, president and chief executive officer. UM Financial plans to market the card to all Canadians.

All 1,018 pages of the Democrats' health care bill can be inspected here. The bill includes racial preferences. Under the Democrats' health care bill, if a medical school wants to increase its chances of receiving many different kinds of grants and contracts from the federal government, it should have a demonstrated record of training individuals who are from underrepresented minority groups. This is because the Democrats' health care bill requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to give preference to the entities that have demonstrated such a record in the awarding of these contracts to medical schools and other...

Supreme Court To Consider Another Case On Racial Bias In Hiring Chicago firefighters say they were illegally discriminated against through test scores. A lawyer calls it the flip side to last year's case involving white firefighters in New Haven, Conn. By David G. Savage February 20, 2010 Reporting from Washington - The controversy over racial bias, testing and firefighters that blew up at both the Supreme Court and the Senate last year returns Monday, this time as the justices decide whether blacks who were not hired in Chicago because of their test scores are due damages for years of lost...

SAT SCORES aren’t everything. But they can tell some fascinating stories. Take 1,623, for instance. That’s the average score of Asian-Americans, a group that Daniel Golden - editor at large of Bloomberg News and author of “The Price of Admission’’ - has labeled “The New Jews.’’ After all, much like Jews a century ago, Asian-Americans tend to earn good grades and high scores. And now they too face serious discrimination in the college admissions process. Notably, 1,623 - out of a possible 2,400 - not only separates Asians from other minorities (Hispanics and blacks average 1,364 and 1,276 on the...

SAT SCORES aren’t everything. But they can tell some fascinating stories. Take 1,623, for instance. That’s the average score of Asian-Americans, a group that Daniel Golden - editor at large of Bloomberg News and author of “The Price of Admission’’ - has labeled “The New Jews.’’ After all, much like Jews a century ago, Asian-Americans tend to earn good grades and high scores. And now they too face serious discrimination in the college admissions process. Notably, 1,623 - out of a possible 2,400 - not only separates Asians from other minorities (Hispanics and blacks average 1,364 and 1,276 on the...

Bill Gates has made his scholarship fund off limits to white teenagers. The Gates Millennium Scholarship fund is financed by a $1 Billion endowment Bill Gates made in 1999. The fund explicitly denies eligibility to white students. “Students are eligible to be considered for a GMS scholarship if they: Are African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian and Pacific Islander American, or Hispanic American;"

It’s hard to get a straight answer as to how pervasive racial preferences are. On the one hand, many academics say preferences hardly even exist — they’re just a tie-breaker that admissions officers use on rare occasions. On the other hand, the same academics often say preferences are crucial to diversity, and their elimination would wreak havoc on campuses nationwide. Perhaps nowhere has this bizarre contradiction been on starker display than in No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal — a book that manages, despite this contradiction, to shed light on various controversies in higher ed. THE EXTENT OF PREFERENCES Using...

A recent study of the applicants to seven elite colleges in 1997 found that Asian students were much more likely to be rejected than seemingly similar students of other races. Also, athletes and students from top high schools had admissions edges, as did low-income African-Americans and Hispanics. Translating the advantages into SAT scores, study author Thomas Espenshade, a Princeton sociologist, calculated that African-Americans who achieved 1150 scores on the two original SAT tests had the same chances of getting accepted to top private colleges in 1997 as whites who scored 1460s and Asians who scored perfect 1600s...

September 26, 2009 BY MARK J. KONKOL Staff Reporter/mkonkol@suntimes.com Will fewer black students get admitted to Chicago's magnet and selective enrollment schools next year? That's the question school watchdogs are asking after a federal judge this week lifted a nearly 30-year-old consent decree ordering the desegregation of Chicago Public Schools. The ruling will likely end the consideration of race as a factor in determining who gets accepted to some of the city's best-performing public schools. "Our primary concern is to ensure there is a fair and equal access to selective enrollment and magnet schools throughout the city," ACLU legal director...

New rules issued by the Bloomberg administration allow minority- and women-owned businesses to circumvent the system for awarding small city contracts -- an advantage denied white-owned firms, The Post has learned. In a memo issued July 15, the mayor's Office of Contract Services told city agencies they could no longer solicit vendors to bid on small contracts -- defined as between $5,000 and $100,000 -- unless they're certified as at least 51 percent minority- or female-owned. That means that even longtime vendors won't be able to sell goods and services to the city in that price range if the owner...

The University of Illinois, which employs communist terrorist Bill Ayers as a professor, has been hit by an admissions scandal which has forced the resignation of the chairman of its board of trustees. An investigation by the Chicago Tribune found that more than 800 undergraduate applicants received special consideration from 2005 to 2009 because "they had powerful patrons, including elected officials, trustees and donors." It added that "Dozens more law and graduate school applicants also got preferential treatment." But how did Bill Ayers get his job? All signs point to his rich father, Thomas Ayers, who was CEO of Commonwealth...

More goodies in the Obamacare Bill. Money for Community Health Organizations includes billions for ACORN. Federal money to med schools will be based upon their proving they are "properly diverse in admissions" and in sending doctors to the proper inner-city communities. (Goodie! More affirmative action doctors!) Will create a new organization to track healthcare to find "racial discrimination" in medical treatment outcome -- to be passed to DOJ for prosecution. Beck also mentioned something about reparations, but at that point I went deaf with horror.

All 1,018 pages of the Democrats' health care bill can be inspected here. The bill includes racial preferences. Under the Democrats' health care bill, if a medical school wants to increase its chances of receiving many different kinds of grants and contracts from the federal government, it should have a demonstrated record of training individuals who are from underrepresented minority groups. This is because the Democrats' health care bill requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to give preference to the entities that have demonstrated such a record in the awarding of these contracts to medical schools and other...

The Supreme Court's decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, the case of the New Haven firefighters, was a ringing endorsement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964's ban on racial discrimination and a repudiation of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's decision in the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. While five justices flatly rejected Sotomayor's ruling, even the four dissenters wouldn't have let stand her ruling allowing the results of a promotion exam to be set aside because no black firefighter had a top score. Ricci is also something else: a riveting lesson in political sociology, thanks to the concurring opinion...

AP: President Barack Obama says he's never believed that affirmative action is as much of an issue as it's been made out to be. He says it hasn't been as "potent a force for racial progress" as its supporters have said, and that it hasn't been as bad for white students or job applicants as its critics say. In an Associated Press interview Thursday, Obama said affirmative action can be made an "afterthought" when problems such as malnutrition, poverty and substandard schools are dealt with, and "everybody has a level playing field." President Barack Obama said Thursday the Supreme Court...

I was not academically qualified for Princeton or Yale and was accepted, despite low test scores, because of affirmative action.

COURT OVERTURNS SOTOMAYOR; SIDES WITH WHITE FIREFIGHTERS

The Senate is about to pay off the unions for helping get Obama elected. Senator Max Baucus (D, Mont.) looks to be about ready to propose a plan to pay for Obama’s massive, more than $1 trillion in new government spending on healthcare by instituting a new tax on many employees that currently have healthcare through their workplace (nearly 1 in 8 workers according to Peter Barnes). Never having been “income” before, Senator Baucus is prepared to claim it is and will be taxed accordingly. … unless, of course, you happen to be a union member. If you are a...

Yes, you read that right. When democrats floated the idea of taxing employer sponsored health care benefits the unions howled, as they have better health care benefits than just about anyone but politicians. Kimberly Strassel calls it a union payoff. That sounds about right. Mr. Baucus, the Finance Committee chairman who is helping lead the Obama health effort, is still deciding what to include in the bill. But his far bigger headache remains how to pay for this blowout. He and other Democrats have been inching toward the taboo benefits-tax, putting them on a collision course with liberal special interests...

It appears that there will be discrimination in choosing the next Supreme Court nominee. Not white. Not male. Not a career judge. Those were just some of the criteria senators outlined Sunday as they discussed their hopes for the next Supreme Court justice. With Justice David Souter retiring this summer, Democrats in particular said the vacancy is an opportunity for President Obama to diversify the high court -- not just by choosing a woman or minority justice, but a candidate with a resume that includes something other than years on the bench.

Asian-Americans blast UC admissions policy They say new standards are unfair, will reduce their numbers on campus April 24, 2009 SAN FRANCISCO - A new admissions policy set to take effect at the University of California system in three years is raising fears among Asian-Americans that it will reduce their numbers on campus, where they account for a remarkable 40 percent of all undergraduates. University officials say the new standards — the biggest change in UC admissions since 1960 — are intended to widen the pool of high school applicants and make the process more fair. But Asian-American advocates, parents...

[Quote]OPEC Engineered Obama’s Harvard Admission (oops! More Obama Skeletons) September 03, 2008 This just surfaced, rather innocently, as a matter of fact. Legendary civil rights lawyer, Percy Sutton, 87 yrs old, was being interviewed and just innocently admitted that years ago, Dr. Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al-Mansour called him and asked him to use his (Percy’s) connections at Harvard to help Barack Obama get him into law school. Now the question is who is this gentleman? Turns out, “his business and professional interests include co-founding the International Law Firm of Al-Waleed, Al-Talal & Al-Mansour, representing the O.P.E.C. interest of the famous...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A state appeals court breathed new life Tuesday into campus integration efforts, ruling that Berkeley does not violate California's ban on racial preferences when it considers the makeup of students' neighborhoods in deciding where they will go to school. Berkeley's policy "does not show partiality, prejudice or preference to any student on the basis of that student's race," said the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco. "All students in a given residential area are treated equally." The ruling is the first by an appellate court on a school district's voluntary integration plan since California voters...

I'm seeing a huge difference in the way that FR is displaying. On two PCs, the Browse page has changed dramatically. One PC's display format of the Browse Articles page changed while I was viewing it. Has anyone else experienced this in the past 10 minutes? Or am I on drugs?

All aspects of federal contracting programs favoring minority-owned businesses have been turned upside down by an injunction issued by a judge in San Antonio.

The incoming Obama administration will have to deal with the issue of racial preferences sooner rather than later thanks to the Supreme Court's decision today to take up an appeal in an affirmative action case, Ricci v. DeStefano. New Haven firefighter Frank Ricci and 18 others sued after the fire department failed to promote them when they scored well on the department's promotion exam. Since too few black firefighters scored high enough to justify promotions, the city threw out the exam altogether. Ricci and his co-plaintiffs - including one Hispanic argue that their promotions were denied solely because of their...

  I'd also like to add one personal note, in response to the letter from Mr. Jim Chen which was published in the October 26 issue of the RECORD, and which articulated broad objections to the Review's general affirmative action policy. I respect Mr. Chen's personal concern over the possible stigmatizing effects of affirmative action, and do not question the depth or sincerity of his feelings. I must say, however, that as someone who has undoubtedly benefited from affirmative action programs during my academic career, and as someone who may have benefited from the Law Review's affirmative action policy when I...

A state appellate court has put a financial cloud over the future of tens of thousands of undocumented California college students, saying a state law that grants them the same heavily subsidized tuition rate that is given to resident students is in conflict with federal law. In a ruling reached Monday, the state Court of Appeal reversed a lower court's decision that there were no substantial legal issues and sent the case back to the Yolo County Superior Court for trial. "It has a huge impact," said Kris Kobach, an attorney for the plaintiffs and a law professor at the...

A state appeals court has reinstated a lawsuit challenging a policy that allows some illegal immigrants to pay lower in-state tuition to attend California's public colleges and universities. The 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento said Monday that a lower court erred in dismissing the suit brought by 42 students who paid far more to attend college because they were out-of-state residents. At issue is a 2002 law that made any California high school graduate who attended at least three years of high school in the state eligible for in-state fee breaks, regardless of immigration status.

A professor who said he suspects UCLA is cheating to illegally admit black students resigned Thursday from its admissions committee, saying the university refused to provide him the data he needs to investigate his suspicions. "A growing body of evidence strongly suggests that UCLA is cheating on admissions," political science Professor Tim Groseclose wrote in a report he released Thursday. "Specifically, applicants often reveal their own race on the essay portion of the application."Students typically report their race on their applications, but the people who evaluate their files don't see names, race or ethnicity. If race does come up in...

PHOENIX (AP) -- With one brief criticism of affirmative action, John McCain has brought new attention to ballot issues aimed at dismantling preferential treatment programs for women and minorities. The question is whether McCain's support for one of those initiatives, in Arizona, will make any difference. . . .McCain's comments also have drawn critics who pointed to comments he made a decade ago calling similar measures "divisive."

Opposing race-based preferences could help power a McCain comeback.

Lansing, Mich. (AP) -- A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging a Michigan law that bans racial and gender preferences in government hiring and university admissions. The ruling on Tuesday upholds the constitutionality of a measure approved by Michigan voters in 2006. It had been challenged by groups including the NAACP

Harman's law to reject white workers for ethnic minorities is slammed by campaigners By DANIEL MARTIN Last updated at 19:11pm on 16th March 2008White men could be legally blocked from getting jobs under new anti-discrimination laws being considered by Labour. Employers would be able to give jobs to women or ethnic minority candidates in preference to other applicants, under the plans unveiled by equalities minister Harriet Harman. If two candidates were equally qualified for a position, employers would be able to reject the white person or the man in favour of a black person or a woman. But the plans...

United Parcel Service Inc. has added lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)-owned businesses to its supplier diversity program. The move comes with a partnership with the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), Atlanta-based UPS (NYSE: UPS) said. The NGLCC represents the interests of some 1.4 million LGBT-owned businesses. UPS began its supplier diversity process in 1992, giving UPS business opportunities for small businesses and those owned by minorities, women, veterans and now lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. LGBT-owned businesses also will get a discount on UPS shipping services.

Racism is so entrenched in the Connecticut State Police that basic hiring practices ensure only a few minority troopers will even enter a training class, never mind be promoted in the ranks, an attorney representing a black troopers' coalition said Thursday.

Tough, tough crowd. Ward Connerly, the California businessman behind a movement to end race- and gender-based affirmative action in Nebraska, faced jeers and interruptions Tuesday evening as he defended his position on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus. About 200 listeners, mostly students, drilled Connerly with questions about his motives, beliefs and even his salary. One young woman asked whether his efforts are funded by the Ku Klux Klan. “No,” Connerly said. Then he added: “What a stupid question,” drawing boos. Connerly leads the California-based Super Tuesday for Equal Rights, which seeks to end racial and gender preferences in hiring and...