Prop 107 is another amendment to the Arizona State constitution. It is a measure which forbids the STATE from discriminating against or giving preferential treatment to anyone based on “race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin.” In short this puts an end to any and all affirmative action measures currently in place in the state government and state agencies, including the three state run universities.
What an outrageous idea! The state of Arizona wants to put into law that for any contracts or positions of employment or education they will blindly look at candidates and pick the one who is the most qualified, talented, and hardest working. That’s just insanity!
Okay, obviously not. It makes total sense.
People don’t like to use the words “racial quotas”, because it doesn’t sound very good, but it is exactly what affirmative action and other “diversity” programs promote.
I’ve experienced this recently in one of my former employers. During a site-wide corporate meeting, one of the executives explained that they aren’t hiring enough women engineers, and that the ones they are hiring are leaving so they need to hire even more to account for the high attrition rate. He never mentioned hiring the most qualified engineers, or the most talented, or the ones with special training in specific areas, or the ones with the freshest and newest ideas. Just women. I have heard a general outrage from the company, mostly coming from… the women engineers that work there. They’ve been there for years and have worked hard to prove themselves (like any engineer has to). Now they think that any project they go on to they will be looked at as another “token female employee”. The company has backed up this policy by hiring two new female engineers. The first one was hired without interviewing ANY other candidates (in a job market with 10% unemployment) and the second one was hired WITHOUT an in person interview at all. Do you think those two will be respected by ANY of the other employees? Do you think they are going to be able to succeed on teams that know how and why they were hired? Have you suddenly CREATED a gender bias against female employees?
It’s nothing against the individuals. I hope they manage to succeed. Unfortunately management has not made it easy for them. In fact they have taken what would be a tough job (I know the company and the jobs) and have made it almost impossible. Is it a wonder why they have a high attrition rate?
Prop 107 eliminates this scenario in the state government. It will do nothing to fix the messed up situation in the company that I use to work for, but it will insure that the State of Arizona is hiring the best teachers, the best administrators, and awarding contracts to the best companies. It just makes sense.
Opponents are saying that this is a step backward for race relations and for “diversity” in the state. That somehow we are all latent racists who will automatically revert to our own biased nature and hire only the people that look like us.
I give people a lot more credit than that. I work with men and women from just about every country you can think of and out of the companies I’ve worked with I haven’t come across a single person that cares (outside of racial quota supporting management) what gender or ethnicity you are. I don’t care if you are from Sri Lanka or Indiana, as long as you know what you are doing and work hard at it. I don’t care if you are an Asian woman or an overweight white guy from New Jersey, if you don’t do your job; I’m going to have real problems with you.
If you support racial quotas to undo years of racial bigotry you have to ask yourself, how long is enough? How long do you support a group because they use to be discriminated against? How long do you give preferential treatment to a minority? Is there a limit? Is there an end?
Stop all racial preferences. Give true equality. If someone discriminates, then everyone has the same appropriate legal recourse. Let’s really be color blind. That’s how you win respect for everyone, that’s how you really make a better state moving forward.
A big YES vote on Prop 107.
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2 comments:
I did not know that you were back at this Blog.
There is one potential problem with Prop 107; the wording is such that it may well open the door to many unintended consequences. for example, if this were the Military, it could possibly undermine the concept of DADT, which is presently being fought now. It could lend credibility to many undesirable outcomes.
I understand what you are saying, Bill, but I think that's the case with anything. I like the simple wording of it because it is straightforward. I wish we had it on a federal level. I think the chances of unintended consequences is more of a concern when you introduce special privileges for specific groups.
And I just started up a little while ago, not really pushing it or spending too much time. I'm still focused on the book. Thanks for reading!
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