Diversity complaints

Predictable groaning from Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus:

But I also find it disturbing that the drive for diversity has been so quickly, so blithely abandoned: Been there, tried that, now we can pick who we REALLY want. Diversity at the expense of quality is no virtue, but quality without diversity is nonetheless a vice.

This is really insightful because oftentimes when liberals speak of affirmative action they claim that rather than representing racial discrimination, it's merely an effort to expand the talent pool so that everyone is considered. Well, guess what, when Bush went looking at potential judges he did have a wide talent pool, including women, Blacks and Hispanics. In fact, had Bush nominated either a Black female or Hispanic it would have made their nomination a lot easier. The fact that he still went with Alito speaks to how impressive he must have been.

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The truth is that diversity advocates aren't content with a wide talent pool, what they're really interested in is quotas. We need to have at least one Black person on the Supreme Court, X number of women, etc. By implication Bush should have ruled out every single white male when he went to fill O'Connor's seat, with little consideration for who's best qualified. That's the zany thinking that lies behind this movement: progress through racial discrimination.

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Update: James Taranto:

We must say, we've come around to the view of our erstwhile colleague Heather Mac Donald, who argued in the Los Angeles Times Friday against choosing a woman to replace Justice O'Connor. It's not that we have anything against women on the court; our favorite nominee (maybe to replace John Paul Stevens?) is Edith Jones of the Fifth Circuit. But there's something to be said for ditching the whole idea of "diversity" and making an appointment strictly on the merits.

Back in 1989 or 1990, when Clarence Thomas was up for a seat on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, we observed in a conversation with a former high-level Reagan official that Thomas might be a good choice to replace Justice Thurgood Marshall, who was getting a little long in the tooth. Our interlocutor, who had been heavily involved in the judicial selection process, argued that it would be better if Thomas replaced a justice other than Marshall so that he wouldn't be seen as filling a racial quota. We were persuaded; apparently the first President Bush was not.

Sam Alito not only is a white male; he will be the fifth Catholic and the second Italian-American on the court. Thus his appointment flies in the face of any notion of minimum or maximum quotas by race, ethnicity, sex or religion.

One advantage of appointing a minority, of course, is that it underscores the racism at the heart of contemporary American liberalism. (Example: An editorial in yesterday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel suggests that black people should all think alike: "The court with Alito would feature seven white men, one white woman and a black man, who deserves an asterisk because he arguably does not represent the views of mainstream black America.)

Great point. The thinking behind the call for diversity also holds that all people of different ethnic groups and genders are monolithic in their thinking. But we know this isn't true. If Janice Rogers Brown had been nominated do you think that most Black women would agree with her on the issues? Doubtful. But she's still just as Black as anyone else. So either we are left to conclude that calls for diversity are bankrupt of any logic or are really about installing people of certain ideology.