Cincinnati Declares Malaysians An Official Minority: Placed On Par With African Americans For Jobs

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Contract language for the city-financed renovation of the downtown Cincinnati Metropole Hotel into luxury accommodations decrees that Malaysians are defined as an official minority for hiring purposes. The contract says the construction workforce on the project -- which includes up to $6.1 million in city money -- should be at least 11.8% minority persons. The contract was approved Wednesday March 3, 2010 and requires developer 21c Cincinnati Inc. to undertake best efforts to recruit minority workers for the 550 construction jobs expected to open. Malaysia is a nation on the South China Sea that had been a British Colony until 1963. Its residents were never enslaved in the United States, nor did they suffer the economic and racial discrimination that black Americans endured for centuries. The city's definition of minorities for hiring on the Metropole project seems to cast an extremely wide net -- besides Malaysians it includes everyone who can trace their heritage back to Asia, the world's most populous continent. Here's the contract language: "'Asian or Pacific Islander' means a person having origin in the original people of the Far East or the Pacific Islands, which includes, among others, China, India, Japan, Korea, the Philippine Islands, Malaysia, Hawaii and Samoa."

Inquiring minds might wonder: Is there a wealth of evidence and history showing Malaysians were subjected to economic abuses by officials in Cincinnati? Malaysians aside, the whole definition of a minority looks somewhat slippery. Under Cincinnati's definition of a minority -- which sweeps up masses of humanity without regard to economic status -- the chairman of Toyota would meet the test, as does the Emperor of Japan. So does Hu Jintao, the president of China.

The issue of minority hiring and government contracting has been percolating recently with the Cincinnati NAACP's concerns that black contractors are not getting their share of school construction work. There has been debate carried in The Cincinnati Beacon here and here. The NAACP has protested at school board meetings, and is raising legitimate points. Perhaps equally as important is a review of who actually gets the label "minority." Certainly, it seems it should be based on more than geography, and should be tied to equalizing or addressing a past wrong inflicted by the government unit awarding a contract or hiring a worker. There is no doubt that black Americans were discriminated against and were shut out for far too long. Malaysians? Koreans? Japanese? Indians from India? Should they be able to seek jobs that probably should be set aside for black Cincinnatians?

The city apparently recognizes that blacks have a special case. It notes: "'Black' means a person having origin in the black racial group of Africa." That wording excludes the North Africans -- the Berbers and Libyans, Egyptians and Arabs. Interestingly, the city's wording does allow some European whites to claim minority status. Besides Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Central and South Americans, Hispanic is defined broadly to include all people of "other Spanish cultural origin." The King of Spain seems to meet that test.

Ohio Conservative Blog Thespis Journal Defends Corsi, Rips Obama: Corsi Is White And Earned Harvard Ph.D

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Arguments about Jerome Corsi's abilities as a writer have veered into race. Thespis Journal seems to be suggesting that Corsi -- author of a controversial best seller that paints Barack Obama as a dangerous leftist -- is intellectually sturdier than the Democratic presidential candidate because Corsi is a white man. The subject came up this morning in a post that defends Corsi:

"Folks, it doesn't get any better than this. Unlike Barack Obama -- who was admitted to Harvard Law because of affirmative action and a 'legacy' admission due to his father having gone to the University -- it is clear that Jerome Corsi earned his way into the prestigious Boston college."

Should the debate over Corsi's book, The Obama Nation, really have anything to do with skin color?

6th Circuit: Michigan Affirmative-Action Ban Stands

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- A federal appeals court in Ohio has refused to issue a preliminary injunction that would block Michigan's new state constitutional ban against all forms of affirmative action from taking effect on the state's college campuses, where students are now enrolling for classes next year. The ban -- known as Proposal 2 -- was adopted by voters on Nov. 7. In effect, the court sided with the voters, who approved the measure by a 58%-42% majority.

This type of referendum might be the kind of political issue that pops up soon in Ohio.

Circuit Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton, a former state solicitor in Ohio who served under outgoing Attorney General Betty Montgomery, wrote the decision for a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. The University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University in Detroit sought the order to suspend the affirmative action ban from taking effect.

The state constitutional amendment outlawed discrimination or preferential treatment based on race or gender in public employment, public education, or public contracting. Sutton's opinion is 13 pages long and was issued late Dec. 29, but has not attracted much attention so far because of the long New Year's holiday weekend.

"At stake is whether the federal courts should permit this state initiative to go into effect or whether we should preliminarily enjoin it in part -- in the part, that is, that applies to public universities and to all applicants to those universities," Sutton wrote. ''While the Michigan state courts remain free to suspend enforcement of Proposal 2 under state law for all manner of reasons, including those urged upon us here -- uncertainty about the meaning of the law, uncertainty about the law's impact on current admissions policies, and uncertainty about changing admissions politices in the middle of the current enrollment season --we are unable to identify any tenable basis under federal law for suspending the law's enforcement."

Sutton added that there is nothing in federal law that requires affirmative action.

''The First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, to be sure, permit States to use racial and gender preferences under narrowly defined circumstances. But they do not mandate them and accordingly they do not prohibit a state from eliminating them. In the abscence of any likelihood of prevailing in invalidating the state initiative on federal grounds, we have to choice but to permit its enforcement in accordance with the state-law framework that gave it birth." (Nos. 06-2640/2642, Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, et al. v. Granholm, et al.)

Ironically, the 6th Circuit ruled earlier this decade that the University of Michigan could use affirmative action in enrolling students, a celebrated decision that was upheld by the Supreme Court and was seen as a major victory for racial preferences. But the court now says that voters can overrule the administrators.

Judge Richard Suhrheinrich, one of the judges who upheld the ban, had long been an MSU law school official, but severed his ties years ago. Judge Alice Marie Batchelder, who lives in suburban Cleveland, also declined to issue the preliminary injunction. Sutton's opinion took the ununsual step of referring to information online about the initiative campaign.