The current and immediately past administrations make an extraordinarily powerful case against affirmative action. Disagree? Read on.
How many of the bozos, sociopaths, and criminals in the Bush administration would have had a career in the higher levels of politics if not for affirmative action? Would Bush have been admitted to Yale, let alone received nomination for president, if not for the special consideration he received because of his heritage and other qualities that mitigated his inferior qualifications? Would Rumsfeld, Cheney, Ashcroft, have risen to the top of the ladder on their own merits, without drawing on more powerful connections? Would Doug Feith, whom Gen. Tommy Franks described as "the f**king stupidest guy on the planet," have risen to be Under Secretary of Defense if not promoted by dimwit Rumsfeld, who considered him "without question, one of the most brilliant individuals in government"? What about all the Justice Department personnel supplied by Regent University Law School--not beneficiaries of affirmative action for extremist fundamentalist Christian right-wing Republican zealots? FEMA, EPA, HUD, the SEC, the FDA--I could go on--and on and on--but you get the point.
On the other side of the equation, the meritocracy that characterizes the Obama administration is absolutely striking--from the chief executive and the First Lady on down. Just a few highlights:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, first student to deliver a commencement address in the history of Wellesley College,pioneer in children's rights, staff attorney to the Watergate Committee.
Attorney General Eric Holder, son of immigrants, tapped at age 10 to enter a program for intellectually gifted students; first black U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, first black deputy attorney general.
Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, daughter of immigrants, first in her family to attend college, activist California state senator, Freshman Class Whip of 2000 House of Representatives.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson: childhood in New Oreans' Lower Ninth Ward, valedictorian at her high school, summa cum laude in engineering from Tulane; masters from Princeton.
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu: Nobel Prize winner. 'Nuff said.
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki: West Point grad with a masters in literature from Duke; Commanding General of the Seventh U.S. Army, Army Chief of Staff, awardee of two distinguished service medals, to Legion of Merits, three Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts--and the guy who stood up to Donald Rumsfeld over Iraq.
I could go on and on; but even the administration's fiercest critics have to concede that it is a meritocracy (the Republican rap is that it's "elitist"). Maybe there's a whiff of affirmative action; it helps to get ahead with this president if you play basketball (well).
Let's be serious about affirmative action. Underqualified white male prep-school alums have been the recipients of affirmative action for more than a century--in fact, for most of our history, all the important public positions have been exclusively reserved for the "protected class" of white males. People from outside that bubble have always had to work much harder to get in, and to get ahead. Most importantly, they have had to push back against the presumption that they were inferior--while members of the old-boy network have basked in the sunshine of high expectations and helping hands. The overwhelming contrast between the quality of the "gentlemen's C" administration of George W. Bush and the self-made strivers' administration of Barack Obama should rewrite our understanding of "affirmative action" once and for all.