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before Survivor and Chains of Love, there was Queen
for a Day, the original reality show. The concept was this:
Sad-sack housewives would regale a studio audience with their pathetic
tales of woe, and a finely tuned clap-o-meter would measure audience
reaction. The housewife who got the most applause for her sob story
would win a household appliance or vacation.
Queen for
a Day was a runaway hit on radio and TV. The stories were often
truly hideous and were always told with real feeling to wring a
few more claps out of the audience.
This barbaric
spectacle has now been resurrected by the federal government as
a method for awarding federal transportation contracts. Instead
of washing machines, the winners get government contracts. The only
thing that's missing is the studio audience.
The Department
of Transportation's Queen for a Day program was created in response
to the Constitution. What the government would really like to do
is discriminate against citizens on the basis of their race. (Governments
LOVE that!) But the government can't just come out and impose strict
racial quotas. The Constitution is very persnickety about governments
engaging in race discrimination.
So instead,
the federal government devised a crackpot and utterly humiliating
scheme for distributing transportation contracts. It is designed
to look like contracts are being given to the applicant with the
most pathetic sob story. In fact, however, the clap-o-meter is set
— by regulation — to give the most applause to women and minority
applicants.
We still have
racial quotas, but now the government will force the beneficiaries
to degrade themselves before being awarded the contract.
The Queen for
a Day law (aka Racial Quotas, but Even More Humiliating) is known
as the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program. In order
to qualify, potential contractors must show that they are both "socially
and economically disadvantaged."
To be "socially
disadvantaged," the aspiring queen must have been the victim
of "racial or ethnic prejudice or cultural bias." To be
"economically disadvantaged," the aspiring queen must
have "diminished capital and credit opportunities" on
account of being "socially disadvantaged."
Claims of social
and economic disadvantage must be attested to in "signed, notarized
certifications." States receiving federal transportation dollars
are required to award transportation contracts to the applicant
whose tale of woe registers the highest on the clap-o-meter. (The
demeaned applicants are on their own for any follow-up showers.)
The Constitution
doesn't say the government can't write dumb laws — as if you didn't
know that. It does say the government can't write racially discriminatory
laws. And on my description so far, the DOT's Queen for a Day program
is merely vomit-provoking.
But the DBE
program quickly bounds from being simply grotesque to being actually
unconstitutional by imposing a legal "presumption" that
minorities (and women) are "socially and economically disadvantaged."
Not only does the Queen for a Day program contain racially discriminatory
"presumptions," but it also punishes states that do not
achieve perfect racial quotas.
If the states
receiving federal transportation dollars choose too many queens
of the disfavored race, they are required to compile various statistical
analyses and submit laborious reports to the DOT. But if — by total
happenstance — the Queen for a Day program manages to achieve the
same result as strict racial quotas would, the state is off the
hook. It can get a waiver from the Kafkaesque bureaucratic hoops.
Guess which
method of compliance the states keep choosing?
That's not
the trick question. This is the trick question: Guess which administration
is currently defending the DOT's racist Queen for a Day program
before the Supreme Court?
In a case brought
by a white guy challenging the DBE program, Adarand Constructors
v. Norman Mineta, Secretary of Transportation, the Bush administration
has decided to continue the Clinton administration's policy of defending
racial quotas by lying about them.
Everyone is
against quotas, of course. As the Department of Justice brief insists:
"Quotas are expressly prohibited." But these aren't quotas
— it's the government's Queen for a Day program! Moreover, according
to the Bush administration, the transportation secretary "will
not authorize the use of set-asides except in the most egregious
instances." An "egregious instance" would include
a state's failure to meet strict racial quotas through the Queen
for a Day subterfuge.
Obviously,
putting the applicants for transportation contracts on TV to tell
their stories is a reality show waiting to happen. (Like the federal
government, the clap-o-meters can be set to register extra applause
for minorities and women.)
But the Queen
for a Day I'd really like to see would put Attorney General John
Ashcroft and President George W. Bush on the same stage to explain
why the other guy is responsible for the administration's massive
resistance to a color-blind Constitution.
© 2001
Universal Press Syndicate
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