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A former director of a Texas Planned Parenthood branch who resigned after she watched an ultrasound-guided abortion told WND the clinic was pushing employees to strive for abortion quotas to boost profits. "There are definitely client goals," former clinic director Abby Johnson said. "We'd have a goal every month for abortion clients and for family planning clients."

Bangor Police Chief Ron Gastia ... “It nonetheless remains necessary to increase the parking revenue and address the limited enforcement of on-street parking.” In that memo, which was leaked to the Bangor Daily News earlier this week, he announced the enactment of a new quota system demanding that patrol officers write a minimum of 10 parking tickets per month. He has since reduced the quota to five tickets a month. Gastia had not intended that internal memo to get into the hands of the public or the media, and when I spoke with him Friday he was clearly not happy...

Justice Dept. to Recharge Enforcement of Civil Rights By CHARLIE SAVAGE Published: August 31, 2009 WASHINGTON — Seven months after taking office, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is reshaping the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division by pushing it back into some of the most important areas of American political life, including voting rights, housing, employment, bank lending practices and redistricting after the 2010 census. “I think the wounds that were inflicted on this division were deep, and it will take some time for them to fully heal,” said Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. As part of this shift,...

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights says some little-noticed provisions in the House health care bill are racially discriminatory, and it intends to ask President Obama and Congress to rewrite sections that factor in race when awarding billions in contracts, scholarships and grants.

Legislation: Still believe in post-racial politics? Read the health care bill. It's affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color. President Obama is on the record as being officially opposed to reparations for slavery. But as with other issues, you have to sift through his eloquent rhetoric and go beyond the teleprompter to get at what he really means.

Still believe in post-racial politics? Read the health care bill. It's affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color. President Obama is on the record as being officially opposed to reparations for slavery. But as with other issues, you have to sift through his eloquent rhetoric and go beyond the teleprompter to get at what he really means. His opposition to reparations is based on the fact they don't go far enough. [snip] Under the Democrats' plans, if a medical school wants to receive contracts and grants...

Legislation: Still believe in post-racial politics? Read the health care bill. It's affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color.President Obama is on the record as being officially opposed to reparations for slavery. But as with other issues, you have to sift through his eloquent rhetoric and go beyond the teleprompter to get at what he really means. His opposition to reparations is based on the fact they don't go far enough. In a 2004 questionnaire, he told the NAACP, "I fear that reparations would be an...

PRESIDENT Obama used his considerable pow ers of persuasion to try to sell his health-care package in a nationally televised press conference this week. But Americans are growing skeptical -- and for good reason. The gargantuan new bureaucracy ObamaCare envisions would not only be inefficient and expensive but could give birth to a new racial-spoils system. Among the provisions in the House version are special set-asides aimed at training "underrepresented" minorities in health-care professions. The idea is that some minority groups -- but not all -- will be better served if their doctors share their racial and ethnic background. It's...

President Obama used his considerable powers of persuasion to try to sell his health care package in a nationally televised press conference this week. But Americans are growing skeptical -- and for good reason. The gargantuan new bureaucracy Obamacare envisions would not only be inefficient and expensive but could give birth to a new racial spoils system. Among the provisions in the thousand-page House version are special set-asides aimed at training "underrepresented" minorities in health care professions. The idea is that some minority groups -- but not all -- will be better served if their doctors share their racial and...

No excerpt allowed from Bloomberg.com, story here .

Last Monday, on the final day of its 2008-09 term, the Supreme Court decided its most controversial recent case, Ricci v. DeStefano. This concerned the now-famous claim by a group of firefighters--17 white and one Hispanic--that New Haven unlawfully discriminated against them on the basis of race. A majority of five justices, with Justice Anthony Kennedy writing, held for the firefighters, reversing a panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that included Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's nominee to succeed Justice David Souter. The four dissenting justices, meanwhile, made plain their belief that the Ricci decision...

In its editorial marking the 233rd year since the founding of our nation, The Washington Post notes; “The men who produced the Constitution were preoccupied with the abuse of power. They talked in terms of restraint, division of powers, limits on government. They were ever mindful of the ways in which a majority could impose its will on a minority.” But as Ricci v. DeStefano demonstrates, sometimes the abuse of power occurs when the government seeks to impose its will on a majority.

NEW HAVEN — The two dozen firefighters who packed into Humphrey’s East Restaurant were celebrating a coming marriage, drinking and jawboning in the boisterous style of large men with risky jobs, but Lt. Ben Vargas spent the evening trying to escape the tension surrounding his presence. During a trip to the bathroom, he found himself facing another man. Without warning, the first punch landed. When Lieutenant Vargas awoke, bloodied and splayed on the grimy floor, he was taken to the hospital. Lieutenant Vargas believes the attack, five years ago, was orchestrated by a black firefighter in retaliation for his having...

THE Supreme Court's deci sion 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 US 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...

A heavily publicized U.S. Supreme Court reversal of an appeals court ruling by Judge Sonia Sotomayor has at least temporarily diminished public support for President Obama's first Supreme Court nominee. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, conducted on the two nights following the Supreme Court decision, finds that 37% now believe Sotomayor should be confirmed while 39% disagree. Two weeks ago, the numbers were much brighter for the nominee. At that time, 42% favored confirmation, and 34% were opposed. Rasmussen Reports has been tracking this question every other week, and it is not possible to know at this time...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled on Monday, in a case with enormous implications for workplaces across the country, that white firefighters in New Haven suffered unfair discrimination because of their race when the city scrapped the results of a promotional exam. “The city’s action in discarding the tests violated Title VII,” the court held in a 5-to-4 decision, referring to a section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The majority said the city’s fundamental arguments were “blatantly contradicted by the record.” Monday’s decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, No. 07-1428, came on the last day of the court’s term...

On Monday’s Newsroom program, CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin couldn’t find a consistent argument about the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of New Haven firefighters who accused their city of reverse discrimination. Toobin first reported that Justice Kennedy, “the swing vote in this case, as in so many others,” wrote the decision, but minutes later, he labeled it as a ruling by “the five conservatives on the Court.”

Stimulus Bill Race Quotas? Did you know that CalTrans, the huge state agency that spends billions in federal highway construction funds, "sets a quota of having 6.75 percent of contracts go to women or members of [a] targeted group--African American, Asian-Pacific American, and Native America, but not Latinos or other groups." Not a "goal"--a quota. They are being sued. But why is a lawsuit even required? Stimulus money appears to be involved. And aren't "quotas" are what every poll-tested politician says he or she is against? Don't you think if the GOPs (or anyone) made a big stink about the...

The Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead announced in Annapolis recently that "diversity is the number one priority" at the Naval Academy. Advertisement The Naval Academy superintendent, Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler, echoed him. Everyone understands that "diversity" here means nonwhite skins. Fowler insisted recently that we needed to have Annapolis graduates who "looked like" the Fleet, where enlisted people are about 42 percent nonwhite, largely African American and Hispanic. The stunning revelation last week was that the Naval Academy had an incoming class that was "more diverse" than ever before: 35 percent minority.

An association of contractors accused Caltrans in a lawsuit Thursday of colluding with the Obama administration to flout California's ban on race and sex preferences by reserving some state road-building contracts for companies owned by minorities and women. "Caltrans is sideswiping the important principle of equal opportunity by using race, not lowest cost by a responsible bidder, to decide who gets government road and highway contracts," said Sharon Browne, a Pacific Legal Foundation attorney who filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Sacramento. The plaintiffs, the Associated General Contractors' San Diego chapter, seek to overturn the state Department of...

I admire many things about Judge Sonia Sotomayor, especially her deep compassion for underprivileged people. I may well support her confirmation to the Supreme Court if her testimony next month dispels my concern that her decisions may be biased by the grievance-focused mind-set and the "wise Latina woman" superiority complex displayed in some of her speeches. But close study of her most famous case only enhances my concern. That's the 2008 decision in which a panel composed of Sotomayor and two Appeals Court colleagues upheld New Haven's race-based denial of promotions to white (and two Hispanic) fire-fighters because too few...

About five years ago, shortly before my term ended as a Regent of the University of California (UC), I was having a casual conversation with a very high-ranking UC administrator about a proposal that he was developing to increase "diversity" at UC in a manner that would comply with the dictates of California's Constitution and the prohibition against race, gender and ethnic preferences. As I listened to his proposal, I asked him why he considered it important to tinker with admissions instead of just letting the chips fall where they may. In an unguarded moment, he told me that unless...

If the U.S. Senate rejects race-based justice, Sonia Sotomayor will never sit on the Supreme Court. Because that is what Sonia is all about. As The New York Times reported Saturday, the salient cause of her career has been advancing persons of color, over whites, based on race and national origin. "Judge Sotomayor, whose parents moved to New York from Puerto Rico," writes reporter David Kirkpatrick, "has championed the importance of considering race and ethnicity in admissions, hiring and even judicial selection at almost every stage of her career." At Princeton, she headed up Accion Puertorriquena, which filed a complaint...

Boards composed entirely of white males can damage their businesses by indulging in narrow “groupthink”, says Helen Alexander, who is nominated on Monday as the first female president of the CBI employers’ group. Ms Alexander, senior adviser to Bain Capital, criticised the slow growth in female appointments to FTSE 100 boards, where women still occupy under 12 per cent of directorships. In an interview with the Financial Times, she said that while “most sensible companies” were starting to take the issue seriously, “you might just be losing real talent and at an important time”. Ms Alexander is expected to be...

The Supreme Court has an opportunity to reaffirm or reshape the nation's civil rights laws as it faces a rare confluence of cases over the next two weeks, including a high-profile challenge brought by white firefighters who claim they lost out on promotions because of the "color of their skin." ... The most emotionally charged case is from the New Haven, Conn., firefighters, whose complaints define the real-life quandary that sometimes accompanies government efforts to ensure racial equality. The firefighters accuse city officials of violating civil rights laws and the Constitution by throwing out a promotions test on which they...

What's good for women's basketball will be good for nuclear physics. To most Americans, that statement will sound odd. To President Obama, it apparently does not. In an October letter to women's advocacy groups, he declared that Title IX, the law that requires universities to give equal funding to men's and women's athletics, had made "an enormous impact on women's opportunities and participation in sports." If pursued with "necessary attention and enforcement," the same law could make "similar, striking advances" for women in science and engineering. That campaign pledge is hardening into policy, which ought to give people pause. In...

NEW HAVEN — Frank Ricci has been a firefighter here for 11 years, and he would do just about anything to advance to lieutenant. The last time the city offered a promotional exam, he said in a sworn statement, he gave up a second job and studied up to 13 hours a day. Mr. Ricci, who is dyslexic, paid an acquaintance more than $1,000 to read textbooks onto audiotapes. He made flashcards, took practice tests, worked with a study group and participated in mock interviews. Mr. Ricci did well, he said, coming in sixth among the 77 candidates who took...

Frank Ricci -- a firefighter in New Haven, Conn. -- spent months listening to study tapes as he drove to work and in the evenings, preparing for a promotional test. It was a once-a-decade chance to move up to a command rank in the fire department. Ricci earned a top score but no promotion. The city had coded the test takers by race, and of the top 15 scorers, 14 were white and one was Latino. Since there were only 15 vacancies, it looked as though no blacks would be promoted. After a racially charged debate that stretched over four...

CHICAGO - After years of legal wrangling, 75 white firefighters will share a $6 million settlement reached with the city of Chicago in a reverse discrimination lawsuit filed over a 1986 lieutenants' exam. Concerned the exam discriminated against black firefighters, the city "race normed" the test's results. A jury later found the test was fair, a decision the U.S. Supreme Court upheld on appeal. City law department spokeswoman Jennifer Hoyle said Tuesday the $6 million is on the "low end" of what the city might have wound up paying. Firefighters' attorney Linda Friedman said a group of 100 other white...

What began as a reverse discrimination lawsuit filed by 20 New Haven, Conn., firefighters five years ago could become a long-term political headache for the Obama administration. The case involves a complaint filed by 19 white firefighters and one Hispanic who were rejected for promotions despite passing a civil-service test. After the lead plaintiff, firefighter Frank Ricci, who had hoped to become a lieutenant, and his fellow plaintiffs got high scores, the city scrapped the test and promoted no one rather than give them the jobs over black candidates who had earned lower scores. When the Supreme Court agreed to...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29, 2009 - Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced more than $6 million in grants to institutions and organizations who conduct training, outreach and technical assistance for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers."These programs are designed to help producers develop new profitable farming practices and increase their farm or ranch income," Vilsack said. "President Obama has pledged to ensure that government is inclusive and USDA is committed to that pledge and to opportunities that support a diverse population of producers who might not otherwise seek our support."These grants enable organizations to help farmers and ranchers successfully acquire, own, operate...

A federal grand jury in Seattle has charged two people in an alleged immigration fraud conspiracy, saying they advised straight immigrants to claim homosexuality in applying for political asylum. Steven Mahoney and his wife, Helena, were arrested today and scheduled to make initial appearances at U.S. District Court in Seattle in the afternoon. Prosecutors say Steve Mahoney ran Mahoney and Associates in Kent, and held himself out as an expert in immigration affairs. They say the point was to make money by advising immigrants on how to stay in the U.S. According to an indictment unsealed Tuesday, the Mahoneys in...

In 2006, Publix Supermarket Charities donated almost $30 million to causes that included Habitat for Humanity, the March of Dimes and United Way. But Al Piña isn't satisfied. Mr. Piña, the chairman of the Florida Minority Community Reinvestment Coalition, believes Publix isn't giving enough to people of color who donate to other people of color. Welcome to the latest trend in racial extortion. According to a study that Mr. Piña commissioned from the California-based activist group Greenlining, Publix gave only 2.81% of its grants in 2006 to "minority-led organizations." Minority-led is defined as groups whose staff and board of directors...

A group in San Francisco has launched a website dedicated to supporting LGBT representation in President-Elect Barack Obama’s 2009 inaugural parade. The site makes it easy to contact members of the Inaugural Committee and congressional representatives via email to voice support in favor of a gay contingent marching in the 2009 inaugural parade. "President-Elect Obama’s message of hope was built on equality and unity. Real equality and unity means that the gay community is finally included at the table," said Paula Grace, co-organizer of intheparade.com. "On January 20th 2009 our President-Elect can demonstrate his sincerity and commitment to the true...

Reports about the man that President-elect Barack Obama is expected to choose to manage the transition at the Federal Communications Commission emphasize his past role as a lobbyist and FCC Commissioner. But the truth is that Henry Rivera has never really left the FCC, having stayed active in its matrix of advisory groups from the 1980s right up to the present. And Rivera's agenda is no secret: figuring out ways to help minorities get a bigger slice of the telecommunications and broadcast media pie. In fact, as Chair of the Commission's Advisory Committee on Diversity for Communications in the Digital...

While choosing between tickets featuring Barack Obama or Sarah Palin this November, voters in Colorado and Nebraska will also be able to bury the idea that blacks and women in America still need special help to get ahead. In those states, the ballot will carry civil rights initiatives to end race and gender preferences in public hiring and education. Led by Ward Connerly's American Civil Rights Institute, the measures would take a chip out of racial preferences that have committed the same kinds of discrimination they were designed to prevent. If passing laws to ban discrimination sounds like a triumph...

Ever since California voters banned the use of racial preferences in government and education in 1996, the University of California has tried to engineer admissions systems that would replicate the effect of explicit racial quotas while appearing color-blind. To some observers, the legality of those efforts has long been suspect, but proof of wrongdoing has been hard to come by. Now a professor who sat on UCLA's committee on undergraduate admissions is charging that the school is deliberately taking race into account when deciding which students to admit. The university has refused to give him access to the data to...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday it was "unacceptable" that there were so few black people like herself in the US diplomatic corps. "I want to see a Foreign Service that looks as if black Americans are part of this great country," Rice told a gathering of black colleges and universities in Washington. "I have lamented that I can go into a meeting at the Department of State," said Rice, the second black person to become secretary of state after her predecessor Colin Powell. "And, as a matter of fact, I can go into a whole day of meetings...

In these times I am rarely surprised by most notions put forth by political pundits. But I must admit to being taken aback by the suppositions of Terry Michael in "Obama as the End of Identity Politics as We've Known Them" (Reason magazine, 6/10/08). Michael appears to believe that under an Obama presidency, we soon will be on "the beginnings of a journey away from the Great Society mind-set of the Democratic Party" and on a course that will put "the Jesse Jacksons, the Al Sharptons, and the white identity politics liberals out of business." Michael envisions the end of...

ABC News' Teddy Davis and Kevin Kilbane Report: During a "This Week" interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos John McCain reversed himself on affirmative action and endorsed for the first time a proposed state ballot measure which would end race and gender-based affirmative action in his home state of Arizona. "I support it," McCain declared when asked about the referendum. "I do not believe in quotas... I have not seen the details of some of these proposals. But I’ve always opposed quotas."

Standards aren’t about generating revenue. Motorcycle officers in Colorado Springs should each be writing a minimum of 11 tickets a day, and their counterparts in patrol cars should issue at least one... But these aren't quotas, Police Chief Richard Myers said. During an impromptu media briefing Friday, Myers described them as guidelines that help supervisors keep track of their officers' job performance ... Ticket quotas - feared and despised by drivers everywhere - demand that officers meet goals or face mandatory discipline, Myers told reporters. That's not the case here, he said. "Police officers are paid for by taxpayers, and...

For decades, critics of affirmative action have contended elite colleges, in their zeal to form racially diverse student bodies, have discriminated against top white applicants. In a twist on that long-running feud, federal authorities are investigating an allegation that Princeton University discriminates against Asian-American applicants by accepting black and Hispanic students with lower entrance scores. At the heart of both arguments lies the question of whether and how colleges should consider race when choosing a class. The Supreme Court has ruled race can be a factor in the process, though racial quotas have long been declared unconstitutional. Critics say admission...

IT'S WELL KNOWN that innovation is the lifeblood of the Massachusetts economy. At every period of stagnation or decline over the past 400 years, someone's bright ideas have turned the tide. Too little valued, however, is the central role played by minorities and women in helping Massachusetts thrive. This morning, the state's political, business, and civic leaders will spotlight the contribution of a diverse workforce to the region's success, and challenge each other to do more. Much more. A 2006 report by the Boston History and Innovation Collaborative found that of 64 game-changing innovations in Massachusetts - from wiping out...

He sympathizes -- but says capitalists are the real culprits The current president, George W. Bush, is not a gifted orator. Oratory seems to be one of those things no one thinks matters much in a president -- until it goes missing. Those who dislike the current president may cite any of a dozen policy issues. But they rarely fail to mention how they cringe when that marble-mouth begins to speak. Freshman Sen. Barack Obama is campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president on a platform of "change." One big change under an Obama presidency, make no mistake, would be...

The racial dimension of Barack Obama's electability problem is now apparent, but no prominent Democrat dares discuss it openly. Similarly expect no discussion of the subject in the major media. The white working class vote I am not referring to the ongoing and intense discussion of The Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Wright is a separate problem for Obama. Whether Obama has been, or will be, permanently weakened by his long and close association with Wright, or has soared above it with his Philadelphia speech, is not the subject of these thoughts. Something much simpler than the answer to that question has...

Dr. F. Javier Cevallos, president of Kutztown University, a publicly funded college located in Pennsylvania, is facing new pressure to step down from his post amid criticism from the university’s faculty union. The union’s leadership — which is comprised of a 10-member executive board — is planning to call for a vote of no-confidence in Cevallos later this week, claiming that he has mismanaged the day-to-day operations of the university, leading to an increase in class size, cramped office space and poor building conditions across campus. In addition, they charge that the morale among faculty is at an all-time low....

(Political Animal) MITT AND THE MUSLIMS....Via Democracy Arsenal, here's what Mitt Romney told Mansoor Ijaz recently about the possibility of appointing a Muslim to his cabinet: "I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, '...based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at...

A prominent affirmative-action critic is targeting Nebraska as one of five states where he hopes to get voters to decide in November 2008 to end the use of racial, ethnic and gender preferences by public colleges and state and local agencies. Ward Connerly, founder of the American Civil Rights Institute, has begun an effort to put an initiative on the Nov. 4, 2008, ballot in Nebraska that would ban the state from granting preferential treatment to people based on race, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin. The initiative would affect the areas of public employment, public education and public contracting....

The problem of the ELCA, and of all mainline Protestant denominations, is the problem of any large, wealthy, traditional organization that has lost track of its mission. The ELCA is like Phillip Morris, which now calls itself Altria. It was built on a product of which it is now heartily ashamed. For Altria, of course, the product was tobacco. For the ELCA, it's the Cross of Christ.

In an article headlined, "White Police Chief Could Upset a Balance in Newark," The New York Times reports that Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker "removed the word ‘acting’ from the title of his police chief, Anthony Campos, a Portuguese-American who, along with Police Director Garry F. McCarthy, leads the city’s 1,300-member police force."The Times worries that, "In a city like Newark, where the majority of the population is black and race issues bubble just below the surface, the decision to place two white men at the helm of the city’s Police Department could threaten the good will and unity that...