THE QUOTAS THAT WILL NOT DIE

California
Race- and gender-based government contracting has become endemic in the US. From the U.S. State Department to city garbage collection, contracts at all levels of government employ race and gender 'preferences'. Race-based contracting practices are an enormous burden on taxpayers, according to a study by Justin Marion of the University of California at Santa Cruz:

• Road construction projects in California cost 6 percent less after the overturning of affirmative action by Proposition 209 in 1996.
• In the two years after racial preferences were eliminated, the state saved an estimated $64 million.

Several factors account for the tenacity of preferential-contracting programs, despite two Supreme Court rulings against them:

• First, aggrieved non-DBE-eligible companies are reluctant to sue the government and offend a hand that may feed them in the future.
• They also fear offending well-organized civil rights activists who have the potential to organize pickets, demonstrations, and sophisticated public relations campaigns against a firm. [you know: extortion]

On the political front, neither party takes seriously the concept of colorblind government. Unless the public loudly demands a colorblind government, we will continue with the existing system that is guided by the notion that the government is entitled to discriminate among its citizens.

READ MORE