Texas A&M Regents Say Nothing in Writing
About Race or Affirmative
Action
Texas A&M Regents were widely reported as rejecting affirmative action in
admissions. However, an examination of the four sheets of paper considered by the Regents shows that
they said nothing in writing about affirmative action policy. By making no mention of affirmative
action, the Regents simply extended the Hopwood prohibition. But the Hopwood prohibition had once upon
a time interrupted their own ‘good faith’ policy of affirmative action.
If the Regents
adopted affirmative action as a sign of ‘good faith’ in 1980, and if it was revoked by outside forces
in the meanwhile, shouldn’t they resume the practice at their first opportunity, or offer a quite
serious explanation why not?
The Grutter decision of the Summer of 2003 had restored
affirmative action to the Regents, yet they met and voted unanimously to take no notice. This is not
‘good faith.’
By doing nothing to restore affirmative action in 2003, by simply
extending the Hopwood revocation, and by offering no written explanation, the Regents have effected a
kind of ‘pocket veto’ of the Supreme Court.
When a peculiar ‘civil rights’ path has
been chosen by administrative elites, deep in the heart of Texas, without any documentation whatsoever,
and having the effect of sustaining a dead law, one feels a shudder of recognition, that this is what
‘bad faith’ looks like up close.
Philosopher Lewis Gordon could not have been more
correct when he called racism ‘Bad Faith.’
By Greg Moses
Jan. 30, 2004
MoPress 