Commentary
Oregon Daily Emerald
Thursday, January 20, 2005
NEWS STAFF
(541)346-5511
JEN SUDICK
EDITOR IN CHIEF
STEVEN R. NEUMAN
MANAGING EDITOR
JARED PABEN
AYISHA YAHYA
NEWS EDITORS
MEGHANN CUNIFF
I’ARKER HOWELL
SENIOR NEWS REPORTERS
MORIAH RAL1NGIT
AMANDA BOLSINGF.R
ADAM CHERRY
KARA HANSEN
ANTHONY LUCERO
NEWS REPORTERS
CLAYTON JONES
SPORTS EDITOR
JON ROETMAN
SENIOR SPORTS REPORTER
STEPHEN MILLER
BRIAN SMITH
SPORTS REPORTERS
RYAN NYBURG
PULSE EDITOR
NATASHA CHIUNGERIAN
SENIOR PULSE REPORTER
AMYUCHTY
RYAN MURPHEY
PULSE REPORTERS
CAT BALDWIN
PULSE CARTOONIST
DAVID JAGERNAUTH
EDITORIAL EDITOR
GABE BRADLEY
JENNIFER MCBRIDE
AILEE SLATER
TRAVIS WILLSE
COLUMNISTS
ASHLEY GRIFFIN
SUPPLEMENT
FREELANCE EDITOR
DANIELLE HICKEY
PHOTO EDITOR
LAUREN WIMER
SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
TIM BOBOSKY
PHOTOGRAPHER
NICOLE BARKER
ERIK BISHOFF
PART-TIME PHOTOGRAPHERS
BRET FURTWANGLER
GRAPHIC ARTIST
KIRA PARK
DESIGN EDITOR
WENDY KIEFFER
AMANDA LEE
DUSTIN REESE
BRIANNE SHOLLAN
DESIGNERS
SHADRA BEESLEY
JFANNIE EVERS
COPY CHIEFS
KIMBERLY BLACKF1ELD
PAULTHOMPSON
SPORTS COPY EDITORS
AMANDA EVRARL)
AMBER LINDROS
NEWS COPY EDITORS
LINDSAY BURT
PULSE COPY EDITOR
ADRIENNE NELSON
ONLINE EDITOR
SLADE LEESON
WEBMASTER
BUSINESS
(541)346-5511
IUDYRIEDL
GENERAL MANAGER
KATHY CARBONE
BUSINESS MANAGER
REBECCA CRITCHETT
RECEPTIONIST
NATHAN FOSTER
AIB1NG GUO
ANDREW LEAHY
JOHN LONG
HOLLY MISTELL
HOLLY STEIN
DISTRIBUTION
ADVERTISING
(541)346-3712
MEUSSA GUST
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR
TYLER MACK
SALES MANAGER
MATT BETZ
HERON CALISCH-DOLEN
MEGAN HAMLIN
KATE HIRONAKA
MAEGAN KASER-LEE
MIA LEIDELMEYER
EMILY PHILBIN
SHANNON ROGERS
SALES REPRESENTATIVES
KELLEE KAUFTHEIL
AD ASSISTANT
CLASSIFIED
(541)3464343
TR1NA SHANAMAN
CLASSIFIED MANAGER
KATY GAGNON
SABRINA GOWETTE
LESLIE STRAIGHT
KERI SPANGLER
KATIE STRINGER
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING
ASSOCIATES
PRODUCTION
(541) 3464381
MICHELE ROSS
PRODUCTION MANAGER
TARA Cl DAM
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR
JEN CRAM LET
KRISTEN DICHARRY
CAMERON GAUT
JONAH SCHROGIN
DESIGNERS
The Oregon Daily Emerald is pub
lished daily Monday throutfi Fri
day during the school year by the
Oregon Daily Emerald Publishing
Co. Inc, at the University of Ore
gon, Eugene, Ore. The Emerald
operates independently of the
University with offices in Suite
300 of the Erb Memorial Union.
The Emerald is pnvate property.
Unlawful removal or use of
papers is prosecutable by law.
R/WANGLE*
"MAKE SURE YOU TOP IT OFF REAL GOOD... I'VE GOT A LOT OF STOPS PLANNED!"
Bret Furtwangler | Graphic artist
■ In my opinion
The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
resulted in many casualties: at least
2,917 lives, uncountable economic
damages, an immeasurable psycholog
ical toll and a lost national sense of
(relative) innocence.
These losses are so terrible and
wrenching that they obfuscated some
of the nation’s less visible sufferings,
including a swollen intolerance of peo
ple of Arab descent. An Oct. 11, 2001,
Zogby poll commissioned by the Arab
American Institute revealed that 20
percent of Arab Americans had person
ally experienced discrimination since
the attacks. An ABC News/Washington
Post poll reported that 58 percent of
those surveyed said that Arabs should
undergo special security checks before
boarding planes.
Trouble found some Arab Americans
outside the polls, too: some 1,147
Arabs and Arab Americans were de
tained (anonymously) between Sept.
11 and December 2001, but charges
were only eventually brought against
one of them. Since, discrimination
against Arabs — from delays at airports
to detainments — has grown into an
ugly scar on the worn body of Ameri
ca's racial history. These stories bother
us for a good reason: To root out a few
would-be criminals, the government
inconveniences thousands of people
and arguably violates their civil, if not
human, rights.
Worse, these people are picked out
for this treatment on account of their
race (and maybe gender and, in some
cases, nationality, too). Our country
is racially diverse but has yet to come
to terms with how race affects our
daily lives.
This sociological immaturity only
further tangles discussions of what to
do about this apparent conflict be
tween individual liberties and collec
tive security. Fortunately, the Supreme
Court has long since specified a strict
criterion for when the government can
TRAVIS WILLSE
RIVALLESS WIT
consider race. Because considering
race can so easily slip into violations of
the 14th Amendment — which grants
equal protection under the law — the
government can’t consider race, except
when the classification is intended to
accomplish a “compelling state inter
est” with methods “narrowly tailored”
to achieve that interest.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor gave
the most interesting (and probably
most embattled) recent example of a
sufficiently compelling state interest —
that of a diverse student body in a
state sponsored institution — in her
majority opinion in Grutter v.
Bollinger. (Obligatory plug: See my
June 26, 2003, column, “Affirmative
re-action,” and my June 24, 2004,
piece, “Affirmative actions” for more
discussion). The corresponding “nar
rowly tailored method” in this case is
the qualitative consideration of race
in deciding who’s accepted at a given
school and who isn’t.
Whether a diverse student body is
a sufficiently compelling state interest
to justify unequal treatment of college
applicants — it’s probably not — is be
yond the scope of this column. But be
cause the legality of affirmative action
in college admissions is constitutional
ly predicated on a fuzzy notion of di
versity — rather than, say, remunera
tion for past discrimination — what
schools mean by diversity is critical.
Often this turns out to include, among
other considerations, being a member
of a racial minority, as is evident in the
oft-employed language of the
necessity of a “critical mass” of stu
dents of various racial identities. In
other words, when perfect, detailed in
formation isn’t available (always), race
is sometimes used as a coarse, and pre
sumably partial, substitute for a more
subtle and ill-defined quality: the po
tential to enhance campus diversity.
But using race as an incomplete, and
presumably statistically correlated,
substitute for a priori unknowable in
formation is very much what happens
in devoting disproportionate attention
to Arab-looking people in the name of
staving off terrorism. Imprisonment
without charges probably violates even
pragmatic moral codes, even if its os
tensible goal is preventing attacks on
innocents; delaying people according
to racial appearance before they board
flights with the same goal in mind is a
subtler ethical issue. Regardless, the
latter at least passes constitutional
muster: If something as ill-defined and
objectively immeasurable as campus
diversity makes for a compelling state
interest, then certainly so do securing
the blessings of liberty and protecting
the life and limb of its citizens.
Without more discussion of the un
derlying ethics, these facts say little
about the legitimacy of the role of
race in either context. However, sup
porters of considering race in the ad
missions process (at least, those who
support it in the legal framework
mandated by the Supreme Court)
thus have little room to argue against
the legitimacy of the more benign and
narrowly tailored considerations of
race in the war on terrorism. Like
wise, those who categorically oppose
discrimination at the airport on ac
count of human or civil right
sensibilities have little room to sup
port affirmative action as presently
legally constructed in the
collegiate world.
traviswillse@dailyemerald. com
■ Editorial
Bush trying
to avoid
being held
accountable
After President Bush won re-election in
November, he explained that with his win
came “political capital” and he made it
clear that he intended on spending it. The
statement was brazen to say the least, con
sidering Bush had the lowest job approval
rating of any re-elected president in
recent memory. But did we really
expect something different from our
cowboy president?
Since then, Bush has extrapolated fur
ther on his theory of political capital: “We
had an accountability moment, and that’s
called the 2004 election. The American
people listened to different assessments
made about what was taking place in Iraq,
and they looked at the two candidates and
chose me, for which I'm grateful.” Read
ing between the lines, by “accountability
moment” the president means the election
results clear his administration of account
ability for the mess it has created in Iraq.
He feels like a man absolved of all his sins
by the American people, and now, on the
day of his inauguration, he can move for
ward with a clear mandate to execute the
war in Iraq his way.
But maybe not. A Washington Post/ABC
News poll this week shows that 55 percent
of Americans feel the war was not worth
fighting. Furthermore, 58 percent of those
polled objected to how Bush handled
the war in Iraq and 57 percent did not
believe Iraqi elections would lead to a
stable government.
Other polls have produced similar re
sults. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll sug
gests that 52 percent of Americans believe
it was a mistake sending troops to Iraq in
the first place. Some mandate.
Bush’s talk of “political capital” and his
“accountability moment” illustrates his
main failing as a president: his inability to
recognize a losing strategy and make the
necessary adjustments at halftime. Rather
than viewing the election as a mandate, he
should see it as an opportunity to
change course and fix the mistakes he
has made. That would truly be an ac
countability moment.
■ Out loud
“I do agree that the tsunami was a won
derful opportunity to show not just the
U.S. government, but the heart of the
American people, and I think it has paid
great dividends for us.” — Condoleezza
Rice, at her confirmation hearing, looking
at the bright side of the catastrophe that
claimed some 168,000 lives.
“We didn’t have the right skills, the
right capacity, to deal with a reconstruc
tion effort of this kind. ” — Condoleezza
Rice, again at her confirmation hearing,
looking at the dark side of the catastrophe
in Iraq, finally.
“You, those who wear our uniform,
have given much, and much more will be
asked of you in the months and years
ahead.” — President Bush, kicking our
military when they are down, at a ball cel
ebrating his re-election. He has obviously
been taking lessons on morale building
from Donald Rumsfeld.