Senator calls for end to Diversity program
 

Virginia Sen. Jim Webb called for ending government-run diversity programs in a newspaper column Friday, saying they have disadvantaged struggling whites and hurt the cause of racial harmony.

Webb wrote an op-ed column in Friday's Wall Street Journal that said a "plethora of government-enforced diversity policies have marginalized many white workers. The time has come to cease the false arguments and allow every American the benefit of a fair chance at the future."

Webb's press secretary, Jessica Smith, said Friday that the senator felt the column speaks for itself and that he would not comment further.

As an author, Webb expressed misgivings about how affirmative action programs have grown beyond their initial intent in two of his books, "Born Fighting" and "A Time to Fight."

Federal diversity programs now primarily benefit new immigrants over whites and even black Americans, their original beneficiaries, wrote Webb, D-Va.

"In an odd historical twist that all Americans see but few can understand, many programs allow recently arrived immigrants to move ahead of similarly situated whites whose families have been in the country for generations," he wrote.

"The injustices endured by black Americans at the hands of their own government have no parallel in our history, not only during the period of slavery but also in the Jim Crow era that followed," he wrote.

Immigrants from Asia, Latin America and Africa in recent decades knew no such discrimination from the government, he wrote, "and in fact have frequently been the beneficiaries of special government programs. The same cannot be said of many hardworking white Americans, including those whose roots in America go back more than 200 years."

The column raises the issue of ethnic and racial sensitivity that helped Webb win his Senate seat in 2006, after Republican Sen. George Allen called a Webb aide of Indian descent "macaca," a slur in some cultures.

Should Webb seek a second term in 2012, he could face a rematch with Allen, who wants his Senate seat back.

Former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first elected black governor who endorsed Webb four years ago, criticized the column and challenged Webb to produce the data he used to conclude that diversity initiatives should end.

"If it's not for the civil rights movement and diversity programs, he would not be a United States senator today," Wilder said, referring to minority support that helped Webb beat Allen by about 9,000 votes.


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1. I made a siggy!!!!!

2. I love reading stuff like this. It shows that the method to correcting a problem has potentially caused the same problem in the opposite direction. I'm open to say that I'm not a complete fan of AA and other forms of "forced" diversity, but I do think that they are necessary in some instances.

I'd like to see the numbers on this though. Are those disadvantaged whites mainly men or is it spread across the board between the sexes? White women seem to get in on the woman part of the diversity push.

The very notion that we could end discrimination through even more discrimination was supremely flawed to begin with.

I haven't seen many instances where it is not necessary. For every good company (that happens to be fortune 500) there are many who refuse to hire. And it doens't have anything to do with the higher ups. I've have been on corporate long enough to know most of the issues start with some middle manager going rogue and doing his own thing.

I think the issue with AA is that it is a written rule as compared to the unwritten rule of hiring from this school because the big boss is an alumni, or my tennis buddy's son needs a job and it would be GREATLY appreciated if you could get him on.

As long as you apply that logic to affirmative action and diversity initiatives that have benefitted women and the disabled more than racial and ethnic minorities.

The only thing I gathered from that article is that it's wonderful to live in a nation where people can express an array of opinions. What this senator said is nothing new but he definitely needs a history lesson and to read a demographic breakdown that correlates race, ethnicity, and nationality with educational attainment, occupational attainment, and social class.