Andrew Sullivan yesterday quoted a Boston Globe columnist who wrote, “The editor of a sizable newspaper told me recently that he decided the racial makeup of four new hires – two minorities, a white woman, and a white male – before reviewing a single applicant.” Andrew commented: “Isn’t that illegal? And if a leading editor is enforcing illegal racist hiring policies, shouldn’t a journalist tell us who he or she is? Or are liberal editors above the law?”

A similar thing happened to me. I can’t tell you the newspaper involved, because it could get innocent people there who were honest with me fired. I was interested in a position at the Bugle (we’ll call it), also a sizable newspaper. My clips and resume was greeted with sincere enthusiasm by the section editors, who told me arranging a job interview would be simply a formality. Suddenly I didn’t hear from the Bugle for a long, long time. I was told by a highly-placed source within the Bugle’s management that my status as a white male hurt me with the top editors, that the paper was looking to hire a minority.

Not sure if I believed this, I communicated with the (white male) managing editor, and told him I’d be willing to fly to his city at my own expense if he’d at least grant me an interview. He refused, and wouldn’t give a reason. I knew something was up. I later discovered from a sympathetic source inside the paper that the Bugle had done the same thing to another white male candidate for a job — they told him point-blank that he was the most qualified of all applicants, but that he would have to wait for them to do a national search for a female and/or racial minority candidate first.

Anyway, journalism jobs are so scarce that people in the biz don’t want to taint themselves by making trouble. But one of these days, these racist liberal bastards are going to face a discrimination lawsuit from a white guy who only wants a fair shake at a job, and is being denied it because of his sex and/or the color of his skin.