THENEW YORK TIMES TELLS THE TRUTH-OOPS
The New York Times Tetts the Truth—Oops Last Thursday's New York Times featured a pompous ad in favor of "diversity" in college admissions signed by the presidents of 62 universities. The ad...
...Brown maintained that the federal law barring sex discrimination by schools requires schools to provide equal opportunities, not equal outcomes...
...Congress itself might be rechristened the National Endowment for the Art of Avoiding Responsibility...
...The Arts Machine II Here's another good reason to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts: It's not endowing art, it's endowing fellow bureaucracies...
...Brown Bombs Okay, it's hard not to snicker when uttering the words Brown University and athletics in the same breath...
...Which raises the question: Why don't those 49 members of Congress cut out the middle man and rewrite Title IX...
...But after being sued for discriminating against women in its athletic programs, the Ivy League school better known for pasty-faced left-wing self-discovery than for its exploits on the playing field has litigated an important conservative principle all the way to the Supreme Court...
...Here's a modest proposal...
...The note went on to assert that "'Bias,' as a term for affirmative action, was neither impartial nor accurate...
...The case started when Brown cut funding for men's water polo and golf in 1991—an ordinary budget decision...
...This is a species of egalitarian extremism, but it won't do to blame the courts...
...The next morning's Times brought an Editors' Note, calling this headline "an editing error...
...Telemarketing by Ted Senate Republicans picked up two seats last year, which was supposed to make the institution ever more conservative...
...Congress wrote it in the first place...
...The ad covered most of the page...
...Kennedy's need for money—and the 15 different scripts for keeping busy people on the line until they cough up $150...
...Department of Education...
...Do we really need a federal arts agency to fund the U.S...
...That's what the NEA is doing with an initiative that offers up to $108,000 in matching funds for the department's Creative Partnerships for Prevention, "a drug and violence prevention program for youth using the arts and humanities...
...The Education Department, by the way, already has a $9 million allotment of its own for arts education...
...How about let's axe the NEA and convert the whole government into different kinds of arts organizations...
...If you order both of them to lose 20 pounds, is that fair...
...Besides its social-work initiatives described here last week, the NEA is funding numerous "education programs," including the sort of intra-federal log-rolling that should raise red flags at budget time...
...This is precisely what a Democratic Congress did with the civil rights law in 1991, unhappy with a couple of Supreme Court decisions that didn't agree with their interpretation of the relevant statutes...
...We can understand why Kennedy is doing this...
...The program, aptly titled "Arts in Education," funds the education program at the Kennedy Center, encourages support for art in school curriculums, and much else besides...
...Help Wanted_ The Weekly Standard has a position available for a circulation manager, who will report to the circulation director...
...All of this was just in a day's work at the Times...
...From there, it's on to Sen...
...Here, instead, is how whoever wrote the Editors' Note described what it was that the universities endorsed in their ad: "the right of colleges to use affirmative action in their admissions procedures to achieve diversity...
...Instead of 5 million children, say that "without this legislation, close to 10 million children will go without health coverage, risking great physical harm...
...If more men than women want to be on sports teams, that's their choice...
...Candidates must have several years' experience in circulation planning, budgeting, subscription fulfillment, ABC regs, source management, and direct marketing...
...The bill is riddled with shortcomings, but Kennedy has managed to find some Republican sponsors, including his longtime best buddy from across the aisle, Orrin Hatch...
...Unlike this gooey euphemism, the headline had two merits: It was true, and it fit within the narrow confines of that single column...
...Clearly, the NEA hopes to perpetuate itself as another patronage-dispensing federal agency...
...Please send your resume to: Business Manager, The Weekly Standard, 1150 17th Street, NW, Suite 505, Washington, DC 20036...
...Or fax us at (202) 293-4901...
...It's not clear whether either of these criteria motivated the anonymous headline writer...
...Brown's opponents, including the Clinton Justice and Education departments, claimed that the prohibition on sex discrimination is a radically egalitarian one: Brown must see to it not just that opportunities are equal, but that participation is, too...
...After all, it was Congress in 1972 that passed Title IX mandating this "equal" treatment...
...it can amend it or rewrite it whenever the members choose...
...I have spoken with several people tonight who care as much as you do and are also experiencing difficult times right now...
...But the only senator of either party who seems to be on offense is Ted Kennedy, who has returned this session with legislation ostensibly designed to provide health care for uninsured children...
...What is clear is that, at the Times, cutting through liberal cant about "diversity" and "affirmative action" won't be tolerated...
...We've obtained the telemarketers' script...
...that they were not doing so at Brown, where only 38 percent of student athletes were women, meant the school was not meeting its obligations...
...And in the event someone says he simply can't afford $150, there's a backup plan: "I certainly understand how you feel, and believe me you are not in a unique situation...
...It starts, as these things always do, by lavishly praising Kennedy's "landmark legislation"—legislation that not only proposes funding health-insurance coverage for over 5 million children, but takes a courageous stand against smoking by children and also will help children grow up to lead long, healthy lives...
...Nope, said several federal courts...
...it was the headline on the article that was stunning: "62 Top Colleges Endorse Bias In Admissions...
...But what do his Republican co-sponsors get out of the deal...
...It should not have appeared...
...What congressman wants to kill funding for the arts when it goes to schools in his district...
...As the First U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals put it, "Women, given the opportunity, will naturally participate in numbers equal to men...
...The Pentagon, for example, could become the Art of War department...
...Its mistake was in simultaneously cutting university funds for women's gymnastics and volleyball...
...For instance, "If they tell you they are not interested immediately after you have delivered the opening presentation," the script instructs the telemarketer to up the ante...
...In the memorable analogy of a spokeswoman for the aggrieved gymnasts, "You have two people...
...It now turns out that the bill is not only about children and their health: It's also about fund-raising for Ted Kennedy...
...One of them is obese and the other is anorexic...
...Down the single remaining column there was a short news article about the ad, a basically friendly write-up of the efforts of America's top universities to prop up affirmative action against the likes of California's voters and the Fifth U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals, both of which have recently endorsed the principles of colorblindness and equal opportunity in higher education...
...A Republican Congress with the courage of its convictions will start writing new statutes instead of amicus briefs...
...Then ask again...
...Perhaps he or she wanted to avoid using the word "quotas," which also would have been true and would have fit in the headline space...
...He and an affiliated group, the Committee for a Democratic Majority, are trolling for money by touting the bill and their need to publicize its virtues...
...Well, Brown lost big—to the dismay of the more than 60 major universities that backed it as well as a coalition of conservatives including 49 Republican congressmen...
Vol. 2 • May 1997 • No. 33
