Glenn and Mickey Kaus (see the Cinco de Mayo i.e., May 5 entry), as a result of others’ blogging about it have started discussing the journalism scandal at the Gray Lady, in which a reporter was fired for plagiarism. It was since discovered that he had been corrected what seemed an inordinate number of times, and retained his job until the most recent egregious violation of journalistic ethics. Not unnaturally, because he was black, it has caused many to speculate that his seemingly too-lengthy tenure, and perhaps even his initial hiring, given his record, was due to affirmative action.
Others (like Glenn) point out that his record isn’t necessarily worse than many white reporters, so it isn’t clear that this is the case.
Here’s where Mickey goes off the rails. He uses an analogy to make his point, and it turns out to be an excellent one–so much so that it makes his opponents’ point.
Suppose in an effort to promote commerce in isolated Utah, the government announced relaxed safety standards on trucks from that state. Utah trucks were safe, the public was told. Many were even safer than trucks from other states. But they wouldn’t be inspected as often or as rigorously.
Now suppose a Utah truck got in an especially big, prominent, messy crash when its brakes failed. Would the politicians, the press and the public say “But non-Utah trucks crash all the time!” or “You haven’t proved a direct causal connection between the Utah-preference program and this crash”? No! There would be a instant hue and cry about how the preference for Utah trucks should be ended — and how Utah trucks should be held to the same standards, etc. And those making the fuss would be right. Why should we have to worry about whether or not the relaxed standards for Utah might have led to this or that particular crash? Just apply the same tough standards across the board. Safe, well-run Utah trucking companies, to save their reputation, would be leading the pack in lobbying to end their special preference.
His point would be valid if the people saying that it wasn’t necessarily the hand of affirmative action at work were also saying that therefore we should keep affirmative action (or that the fact that we can’t obviously blame non-inspection for the truck accident as a justification for non-uniform laws).
Now, I haven’t read anything to indicate that’s the case (though I imagine it will be coming soon if it hasn’t already), but it does nothing to rebut Glenn’s point, which is simply that the evidence doesn’t necessarily show that affirmative action (or lax trucking inspections) was responsible. I suspect that Glenn would (as would I) say that it’s possible to both not be convinced that this particular incident was a result of the bad policies, and still support changing the policies. I think that there’s ample evidence, and theory, to justify ending affirmative action in particular, without the need to resort to this particular incident to support that course. Surely Mickey (and others) don’t fantasize that this will somehow be the straw that snaps the camel’s spine?
[Should we also ask why Mickey would pick on the state of Utah? Could it be because of all the white folks there?–ed. No, let’s not go there.]
That is, I oppose affirmative action (and differential trucking inspection regimes, since, unlike most federal legislation falsely justified by that flawed portion of the Constitution, those clearly fall under the Commerce Clause), and believe that it indeed should be ended for the reasons that Mickey states, and others, but like Glenn, I remain unconvinced that this particular instance was a result of that policy (though I certainly remain convinceable, given sufficient evidence and insufficient counterevidence). However, I also have no trouble, given the state to which the NYT has declined recently, believing that it can also simply be attributed to lousy management and/or agendas.
I do hope that this latest episode results in either continued loss of credibility to a paper that is having an increasingly corrosive effect on public discourse, or a change in editorial and managerial direction that might restore it to its former lofty place in American journalism.