For Immediate Release March 5, 1997

Humpty-Dumpties and Affirmative Action

by Charles King

Colorado House Bill 1299, the "Equal Opportunity Act of 1997," sponsored by Rep. Vickie Agler, passed final vote in the House on Feb. 24, 37 to 28. HB 1299 is designed to end race- and gender-based personnel decisions by state agencies. To a person, all 24 Democrats voted against the bill, and joining them were four members of the GOP (Reps. Bill Kaufman of Loveland, Steve Tool of Fort Collins, Lew Entz of Hooper, and Marcy Morrison of Manitou Springs).

Rep. Agler's bill, will probably pass the Senate—comfortably, but with fewer votes than needed to override a likely veto by the Governor.

Representative Bill Kaufman, told the press why he voted against HB 1299: "There is not," he said, " a level playing field in this country as yet."

No, the playing field is not level, and the leading reason why is affirmative action. Agler’s bill would require all state agencies to "conduct all state business without regard to the race or gender of any person." It would enshrine in state law the principle of equal opportunity for all "without regard to the race or gender of any person." Equal opportunity before the law—it is the only kind of equal opportunity that can be objectively determined, the only kind that will hold the diverse elements of American society together in unity.

Rep. Kaufman then adds: "I wish we didn't need affirmative action."

Well, we do not need affirmative action. And we never did—unless by "affirmative action" you mean what it meant in its very beginnings. I mean the kind of action President Kennedy had in mind when in March 1961 he issued executive order 10925 requiring federal contractors to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to race, creed, color or national origin." Notice the color-blindness in Kennedy's order. Today’s "affirmative action" is color-conscious, not color-blind. Later, President Johnson issued executive orders requiring federal agencies to "take affirmative action," i.e., to reach out—in color-blind fashion—to minorities.

Rep. Agler’s bill does not affect affirmative action outreach programs or a state law which mandates state agencies to "consider minority companies in granting state contracts." Her bill simply seeks to end reverse discrimination in state affirmative action programs.

Bill Kaufman concludes with this rhetorical gem: "But we have to stand up here for equal rights."

Now that’s interesting. We "have to stand up for equal rights," he says, but when he had a shining opportunity to stand up for equality before the law, to vote for a bill that would advance that equality, he sat down. As did three of his Republican colleagues and every Democrat in the House.

Much, of course, depends on what Kaufman calls "equal." How can he call "equal" what the dictionary defines as "unequal"? Like Humpty-Dumpty, an egghead who said words meant what he wanted them to mean, some real-life eggheads I know say they want "equal opportunity," but by "equal" they mean what they want the word to mean.

Substitute "equal" for "glory" in the quotation below from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, and you'll see what I mean.

"I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’" Alice (of Wonderland) said.

Humpty-Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't—till I tell you. I mean 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"

"But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’" Alice objected.

"When I use the word," Humpty-Dumpty said . . ., "It means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

The word "equal" in the "Equal Opportunity Act of 1997" has already made some Humpty-Dumpties, politicians and self-interested campus administrators, noticeably nervous.

Charles King is a former editor of The Modern Language Journal, and Vice President of the Colorado Association of Scholars, and a Senior Fellow in Cultural Studies at the Independence Institute, a free-market think-tank in Golden, Colorado.

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