Bush Administration and Affirmative Action Bush Administration and Affirmative Action
August 10, 2001: The Bush administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to uphold the use of racial preferences in some government contracting, a position at odds with the president's campaign pledges. See article Bush Administration Defends Quotas.
August 11, 2001: The Bush administration late Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold affirmative action rules designed to help minority-owned businesses win federal government contracts. Justice Department lawyers, acting after the Supreme Court had closed for the day, filed a legal brief defending Transportation Department regulations that many critics, including several prominent Bush supporters, say represent reverse discrimination. See article White House Asks High Court toSave Affirmative Action Program.
In the most closely watched affirmative action case in recent years, the Bush administration on Friday defended a federal program that uses race as a factor to create a "level playing field" in doling out billions of dollars in government contracts. The Justice Department's position, coming in a case that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear in the fall, marked a departure from President Bush's past opposition to government racial preferences. See article Bush Backs Raced-Based Program.
The Bush administration defended the use of racial preferences in a highway program, but made clear it was not endorsing quotas that the president has pledged to fight. See article White House Defends Racial Preferences.
In its first high-profile decision on the politically sensitive issue of affirmative action, the Bush administration last night defended the constitutionality of a federal program that is designed to encourage the award of contracts to minority-owned businesse. See article Bush Backs Minority Program.
President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft now have the historic opportunity to return us to the original, color-blind purposes of the Civil Rights Act and the Declaration of Independence, and to place government-sanctioned racial discrimination back where it belongs--in the course of ultimate extinction. See editiorial The Death Throes of Preference.
Now is not the time for the Bush administration to get weak-kneed on affirmative action. Not only did George Bush campaign against racial preferences; they are bad policy and are destructive of racial relations. See editorial Bush-Ashcroft Should Reject Racial Preferences.
August 14, 2001: At first glance, the Bush administration's decision last week to defend a federal contracting program that gives racial preferences to minorities might seem puzzling. After all, both President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft have expressed opposition to affirmative action and have pledged to find ways of eliminating it. But legal observers say the administration's decision to defend the contracting program likely had less to do with its stance on affirmative action than with its view of the proper role of the Justice Department in cases before the Supreme Court. See article Old policy trumps new in affirmative action; Bush administration finds itself defending Clinton-era program.
The Bush administration should not be defending affirmative action for Colorado highway contractors before the Supreme Court. There are times when standing up for principle is more important than etiquette, and this is one of them. See editiorial What About Policy?
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