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Bill Gates' Gift to Racial Preferences in Higher Education
RACIAL CONSERVATIVES ARE correct. The huge billion-dollar Gates Millennium Scholarship program is racially discriminatory. The terms of the plan could not be clearer. Whites may not apply!
Ward Connerly, the black man who has led a national campaign against affirmative action in higher education, says that "the Gates program may go down in history as the largest act of private discrimination ever."
Despite the fact that this magnificent gift is a private act of philanthropy, legal opponents of preferences surely have noticed some legal problems. The Gates scholarship is being administered principally by the United Negro College Fund, a tax-exempt organization. The problem here is that there are Supreme Court decisions, reflected particularly in the Bob Jones case, ruling that a tax-exempt school or other organization that discriminates on the basis of race must either lose its tax exemption or open its programs to all comers without regard to race.
True, federal tax issues ordinarily may be raised only by the Internal Revenue Service or by the parties directly involved, yet an issue remains.
Many hard-line opponents of racial preferences have taken the position that all forms of race discrimination are illegal and that it doesn't matter whether the person engaged in discrimination is public or private. If these foes of preferences are to be true to the strict enforcement of the harsh doctrines they teach, they now may be tempted to test their position in court. But, if the enemies of special breaks for blacks and Hispanics do decide to go down this road, they will be burdened with the most unfavorable set of facts appearing in any of the dozens of similar legal cases that they have won so far.
Unlike most of the prior lawsuits that have struck down preferences in higher education, the Gates endowment simply provides money to low-income minorities -- and nothing more. According to the Census Bureau, white families in the United States, on average, have 10 times the family wealth of black families and a similarly huge wealth advantage over Hispanics. Therefore, the endowment's exclusion of whites does negligible harm to the ability of white people to finance higher education.
Unlike most racial preference programs in higher education,...