Minority set-asides do not even
the playing field, they tilt it

To the editor:

Your front-page article (“Minority status changes under bill,” March 24-30) illustrates how arbitrary and indefensible minority-preference laws are. The article focuses on a new bill to redefine who is a minority in the awarding of state contracts. Specifically it would strip Portuguese and women from the list.

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I would guess most people agree that individuals and companies should have an equal shot at opportunities, in this case state contracts, based on appropriate qualifications. What do irrelevancies like ethnic origin or gender have to do with it? All preferences – no matter how well intentioned – are discriminatory. No fair-minded American would think it OK to discriminate against blacks. Yet since the Bakke case in 1978, it has been legal for government to discriminate against whites based solely on race.

Does anyone really consider the Portuguese in Rhode Island a minority that needs government preference in the awarding of contracts? I’ll bet there are fewer Danes, Nigerians and Lithuanians. What about them? And what about left-handers? They’re in the minority. Who’s looking out for them?

When a politician sees to it that the son of a golfing buddy gets a state summer job, we get worked up about favoritism. When our legislature enacts laws that favor one group over another, we should point out to them that that is not equal opportunity. It is wrong-headed social engineering.

Another story in the same edition of PBN (“Obama lacks support from most black corporate elite,” March 24-30) quotes former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk saying black senior executives don’t contribute to Barack Obama because they haven’t yet developed the habit of opening their wallets for candidates. That seems a rather far-fetched notion.

More likely, black senior executives who have worked hard to get where they are don’t like socialist Obama’s politics. Ranked the most liberal U.S. senator, Obama wants birth-to-death government programs to give everyone everything they could possibly want. And huge tax hikes to pay for his perpetual Christmas presents.

My guess is senior black executives are well aware that hard work is the only route to succeed and it is always we taxpayers who pay the bill whenever pols use the term “free.”

[Editor’s note: Although the bill would strip Portuguese- and women-run companies of their status as Minority Business Enterprises, it would create a different set of requirements for the use of women-run companies on projects receiving state funding.]