TX High court candidate rips affirmative action (liberal media itching to smear him)

AUSTIN -- Republican state Supreme Court candidate Steven Wayne Smith, who as a lawyer has fought affirmative action, says it has placed "underqualified" minorities in colleges.

Smith suggested that even Texas Supreme Court Justice Xavier Rodriguez, whom Smith defeated in the GOP primary, and former Texas Attorney General Dan Morales might have been better off attending the University of Texas instead of Harvard. Smith said that when he attended UT law school, 34 of the 36 students who were on academic probation were minorities.

"You create this artificial system where minorities are being admitted to schools where their credentials aren't in the mainstream," said Smith, who filed a lawsuit that led to the end of affirmative action programs at Texas higher education institutions.

"And so from that school to the next tier, UT, and then on down, you're always having minorities compete with people who are better prepared to be there," Smith said in an interview with the Chronicle.

Rodriguez studied medieval history at Harvard, and earned a bachelor of arts degree. He attended law school at UT.

Smith questioned why Rodriguez studied medieval history, calling it "a kind of obscure subject."

"It might, to me, be better to go to UT and be in a mainstream program," Smith said.

Smith, who won a lawsuit striking down ethics rules that limited judicial candidates from discussing issues, talked about affirmative action and other matters in the Chronicle interview.

Smith upset Rodriguez in this year's Republican Primary for Supreme Court Place 4. Gov. Rick Perry had appointed Rodriguez to fill the term of Greg Abbott, who resigned to run for attorney general.

Margaret Mirabal, a justice on Houston's 1st Court of Appeals, is the Democratic nominee.

Smith said one of the reasons he decided to challenge Rodriguez was because he thought a Hispanic wouldn't do well in the Republican primary.

Smith called Rodriguez's appointment "racial politics," designed to help Perry, who faces Democrat Tony Sanchez.

Rodriguez said Thursday that Harvard provided a youth from the south side of San Antonio "an opportunity to see a larger vision of the United States and the world."

Rodriguez said he graduated second in his high school class and did well at Harvard.

"Harvard's admission criteria is very selective," he said. "It guarantees that all individuals accepted for the college are going to be of the character and quality and stamina that will enable them to eventually graduate."

But Smith said affirmative action has harmed minorities by placing them at Harvard and other top universities where they are "underqualified."

"Minorities go to a school that they're underqualified for and it just pools up through the whole system. Dan Morales should be at UT and people that were going with me (at UT) should be at Tech and Houston, and on down the line."

"Just go to school with your academic peers. That's a better environment," said Smith.

He said many Hispanics and blacks have the intellect to attend a top university, but didn't get an adequate high school education.

"It has nothing to do with the race or ethnicity of the individual, only with their lack of preparedness," he said.

Morales, while declining to discuss his personal record at Harvard law school, agreed with some of Smith's arguments.

After Smith and others won a federal appeals court ruling in the Hopwood case, striking down racially based admissions policies at the University of Texas law school, Morales, as attorney general, issued a controversial opinion in 1996 that the ruling applied to all state universities.

"It does not serve our society well to allow for admission practices which will place an individual who is unprepared for a certain level of rigor academically at an institution where he's almost doomed to failure or mediocrity," Morales said in a telephone interview.

Smith said he envisions a society were "crucial distinctions aren't always about black, Mexican-American and Anglo." College admissions should be based on considerations such as applicants' economic backgrounds rather than on race and ethnicity, he said.

In the Supreme Court race, Smith readily admits that his willingness to discuss controversial issues helps him get press coverage to overcome his meager campaign war chest. He has raised $17,000, while Mirabal said she is well on her way to raising $1 million.

Mirabal has won endorsements from conservative groups that historically back Republican Supreme Court candidates, including the Texas Association of Business and Texas Civil Justice League.

Expect the media to run an all out smear campaign against Smith for daring to criticize racial quotas. They've had it out for him since day one when he upset a RINO appointment to the court in the GOP primary.

His 'rat opponent Mirabal is a real piece of work as well. The special interests have lined up behind her because they view Smith as too independent and know he'll stick with his conservative beliefs.

http://www.stevenwaynesmith2002.org

Smith questioned why Rodriguez studied medieval history, calling it "a kind of obscure subject."

I'm sorry, but complaining about your opponent getting a degree in medieval history from Harvard is pretty pathetic.

I agree with you in principle, however, it is my contention that due to the fact that there is rampant grade inflation at Harvard and other elite universities, a bachelor's degree from there in any discipline is rendered irrelevant.

I do have to dispute Smith's contention that underqualified minorities fail at Harvard, because they along with everyone else are simply given passing grades no matter if they earned them or not.

agree with you in principle, however, it is my contention that due to the fact that there is rampant grade inflation at Harvard and other elite universities, a bachelor's degree from there in any discipline is rendered irrelevant. I do have to dispute Smith's contention that underqualified minorities fail at Harvard, because they along with everyone else are simply given passing grades no matter if they earned them or not.

You make some good points about the grade inflation in the Ivy Leagues. As for the medieval history major itself being criticized, that major is a heck of a lot more scholarly than a lot of the other majors currently allowed these days.

Yea, I'm in total agreement with you that most liberal arts majors are more intellectually rigorous than say, accounting, or banking and finance, or even an engineering degree. At their best, the liberal arts renders one more capable of being a better accountant, banker, or engineer than someone who concentrates thier education solely in these areas. I do have problems with the newer liberal arts like sociology and psychology because they have been misused in my opinion by their modern practitioners to inculcate untrue and decadent notions on the masses such as the idea that good and evil are not inherent in mankind, but merely a construct of society.

On the whole however, Liberal arts degrees usually produces a more well rounded person than those that are more vocational in nature.

What affirmative action does is disenfranchise real Americans and their way of life.Affirmative action disregards any principle this country was founded upon and trys to reconstruct America from the ground up.It excludes any mention of truth in history.We are teaching our children how to be everything but Americans.We are now living in a liberal Ice Age.

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