Off the Record

No Doubting Thomas. Several months back Cato was pleased to have lunch with Clarence Thomas after he took Judge Bork’s old seat on the U.S. court of appeals for the District. After reminiscing about his upbringing, the judge said that conservatives make a big mistake when they say they oppose affirmative action. So what kind of affirmative action could the judge support? He was distressed about black college students who, having been accepted into top schools under a quota system, find themselves over their heads; instead of doing well at a lesser school, many drop out and have their sense of failure reinforced. The judge’s own example of affirmative action he would support was to give such students five years to get their degrees instead of four. “What matters is not where they start out,” he told Cato, “but that they finish—with a real degree that they earned and that’s the equal of any other degree from the same school.” Tell it to the Court.

Just Say Yes. There she goes again. Unreported by the Beltway media, Representative Pat Schroeder (D., Colo.) made a brief, seemingly innocuous parliamentary motion June 26 “to raise a point of order on page 28, line 25 … to strike [Title] ‘XX.’ ” The motion concerned the appropriation bill for the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services, and it was sustained without debate. The result is the elimination of the Adolescent Family Life program, the tiny federal office that oversees and funds local programs teaching kids to abstain from sex. Sources tell Cato that Mrs. Schroeder was acting under marching orders from major recipients of the federal “Title X” family-planning program who are irritated by the small-fry chastity program’s existence—and successes. And we thought the lady was for choice.

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No Doubting Thomas. Several months back Cato was pleased to have lunch with Clarence Thomas after he took Judge Bork’s old seat on the U.S. court of appeals for the District. After reminiscing about his upbringing, the judge said that conservatives make a big mistake when they say they oppose affirmative action. So what kind of affirmative action could the judge support? He was distressed about black college students who, having been accepted into top schools under a quota system, find themselves over their heads; instead of doing well at a lesser school, many drop out and have their sense of failure reinforced. The judge’s own example of affirmative action he would support was to give such students five years to get their degrees instead of four. “What matters is not where they start out,” he told Cato, “but that they finish—with a real degree that they earned and that’s the equal of any other degree from the same school.” Tell it to the Court.

Just Say Yes. There she goes again. Unreported by the Beltway media, Representative Pat Schroeder (D., Colo.) made a brief, seemingly innocuous parliamentary motion June 26 “to raise a point of order on page 28, line 25 … to strike [Title] ‘XX.’ ” The motion concerned the appropriation bill for the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services, and it was sustained without debate. The result is the elimination of the Adolescent Family Life program, the tiny federal office that oversees and funds local programs teaching kids to abstain from sex. Sources tell Cato that Mrs. Schroeder was acting under marching orders from major recipients of the federal “Title X” family-planning program who are irritated by the small-fry chastity program’s existence—and successes. And we thought the lady was for choice.