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representative Michael Harrington, an engineer representing Strafford
County, has introduced important legislation in New Hampshire this
month. His bill, HB 1304, will clarify and strengthen the Granite
State's ban on preferences based on (among other things) race and
ethnicity.
New Hampshire
law already makes it illegal for individuals to be "in any
way favored or discriminated against" because of their race,
but there are those willfully blind to this ban. The University
of New Hampshire, for instance, entered into an agreement with the
Black Student Union there on November 10, 1998, setting out a series
of goals including: adding 50 black students each year until a target
of 300 students is reached in 2004; having a total of ten black
tenure-track faculty by 2003; and hiring no fewer than two black
visiting scholars per year through 2003. "Goals" like
these inevitably become quotas, and will certainly result in some
candidates being either "favored or discriminated against"
because of race.
Accordingly,
HB 1304 spells out that "preferential treatment or discrimination…
shall include but is not limited to the use of any quotas, goals,
guidelines, or timetables that permit, encourage, or require preferential
treatment or discrimination based on race…" It covers
employment in the state civil service; faculty and student admissions
in the state college and university system (including regional community-technical
colleges); and hiring and promotion on the state's Postsecondary
Education Commission.
This week,
the members of the New Hampshire house will be receiving a letter
from a list of names that amounts to a national Who's Who in the
fight against racial and ethnic preferences: Clint Bolick, Linda
Chavez, Ward Connerly, Tom Jipping, Ed Meese, and Grover Norquist.
The letter spells out the importance of nondiscrimination generally
and the merits of HB 1304 in particular.
The only argument
being offered by opponents of the bill is that the federal government
requires the use of goals in order to get federal money. Not only
is this an insult to Yankee independence, but it's an unpersuasive
argument for several other reasons as well. In the first place,
HB 1304 says explicitly that nothing in its provisions prohibits
"actions necessary to establishing or maintaining eligibility
for any federal program where ineligibility would result in a loss
of federal funds to the state." Second, most federal programs
do not require the use of quotas and goals. And, third, even those
that do explicitly ban the use of preferential treatment to meet
them. California and Washington have passed ballot initiatives banning
the use of preferences, and there has been no sudden ineligibility
for federal funding there.
The fact is
that there is no reason to oppose HB 1304 — unless you favor
the use of preferences based on skin color and ancestry. There are
such people in the United States, and even in New Hampshire, but
they are out of step with the overwhelming majority of Americans.
The bill is
likely to come to a vote in the New Hampshire house of representatives
on March 6 or 7. This body — the third-largest legislature
in the English-speaking world, behind only the U.S. Congress and
British Parliament — can do itself proud by refusing to rank
New Hampshirites according to the color of their skin or the country
of their ancestors.
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