Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Another state trying to throw out affirmative action

Idaho's trying. A bill just cleared the house committee to ban affirmative action in the state. Legislators are sick of seeing the obvious racial bias that's come out of it and they want to go back to hiring on qualification instead of skin color and sex. The SCOTUS ruled that states can ban it and a number of them have. The liberals are trying to get protection of queers included but that's a behavioral issue, not a genetic thing like race or sex.

BOISE — A panel of Idaho lawmakers passed a bill Wednesday banning affirmative action for state agencies, state contracting and public education.

The House State Affairs committee passed the bill from Blanchard Republican Rep. Heather Scott, sending it to the full House floor on a 12-3 party line vote after hearing several members of the public testify in opposition.

Scott said the bill would prevent discrimination by banning schools, state and local governments from giving discriminatory or preferential treatment to potential employees based on their race, sex, ethnicity or national origin.

She recounted an incident when she applied for a job and was told she’d probably be hired because they were hoping to hire several women. The comment caused her to withdraw her consideration.

“I wanted to be hired on my merits and the fact that I was a hard worker. This gentleman just saw me as a woman, and he needed to get five of them to fill the position,” said Scott, who is white. “I believe it’s deeply offensive to hire someone or not hire someone based on their race, sex, ethnicity and national origin... Basically we just need to treat everybody equal and this language will do that.”

The committee room was packed, with all but one of the people who testified speaking in opposition to the bill.

Kathy Griesmyer, policy director for the ACLU of Idaho, said Scott’s bill misrepresents how affirmative action programs work. Such programs don’t grant preferences or create quotas, don’t allow race or gender to be the only criteria used for hiring, and they allow the programs to exist only as long as necessary to remedy existing imbalances in the work environment.

Instead, affirmative action programs try to “make sure that those barriers to equal access to education and employment are removed so that all may flourish,” she said.

Fortune 500 companies and major Idaho employers like Micron, Simplot, Albertsons, Boise Cascade and Idaho Power have adopted affirmative action policies, Griesmyer noted.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that affirmative action bans are legal and nine states — Texas, Arizona, California, Oklahoma, Michigan, Nebraska, Washington, New Hampshire and Florida — have enacted such bans, though Texas’ ban was later reversed after a legal challenge.

Democratic Reps. John Gannon and Brooke Green, both of Boise, repeatedly attempted to question Scott about why the bill wouldn’t also ban discrimination or preferential treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer citizens. Those questions were shut down by committee Chairman Rep. Steven Harris, a Republican from Meridian. Harris said the questions weren’t appropriate because they didn’t address the bill.

Groups like Add The Words have fought in Idaho for more than a decade to add protections for LGBTQ residents to Idaho’s existing anti-discrimination laws, but so far the Legislature has rejected those efforts.

Green said she would continue to fight to expand discrimination protections to LGBTQ residents.

“Today we saw hypocracy on full display,” Green said.

Some years ago, I worked for a large trucking company. We had 6 local drivers. One retired and the boss was interviewing for a replacement. The company wanted him to hire a black to meet racial quotas but there were none available and we certainly didn't have any applications from any. At the time, the black population here was in the single digits. They seriously considered bringing in a black driver from Salt Lake while we had some very qualified local applicants to choose from. They finally dropped the idea but it was racism at it's finest.

Anyone remember John Lachuck? He wrote for Guns and Ammo for years and edited Elmer Kieth's stuff so it could be printed. Anyway a job came open in another field. He took a test and got the highest score. He didn't get the job so he asked someone he knew about it. They told him, "John, you didn't have a chance. One of the applicants was a black woman."

I took the test for the Post Office in about 1980, when I called for interview appointment the guy told me not to even bother, I needed to be a minority female to even be considered.

I used to working for a vending company. We had vending machines in all the big mills and industrial business in most of the state. I had a driver retire and the best candidate to fill his job turned out to be a woman. I got congratulated all around for hiring a woman and it was an insult. I hired the best candidate, not genitalia.




P

Needs to be done away with all over.

Gee, you mean they are going to do away with state sponsored discrimination, based on skin color.

I think I remember Martin Luther King talking about how we should be judged by our character, not our skin color.

Affirmative action is one of the biggest handjobs ever given to us by Washington, DC.

Believing themselves wise, they became as fools.

Just talked to a couple friends 2 days ago about this. I haven't seen a white anglo person in a post office uniform in years around here. My mail delivery person doesn't even speak English.

That is disingenuous to put it mildly. It assumes that any imbalances are due to discrimination, completely ignoring differences in qualifications among groups. The way affirmative action or diversity policies work in actuality is to force results, with lip service paid to merit. It was sold as a means to open doors previously closed, but it turned into an abomination of reverse discrimination.

Include me on the list. Affirmative action cost me at least a million over my career and into retirement.

Paul

It's as simple and obvious as that, yet people can't see it.

Around her, I AM THE MINORITY.

California has banned affirmative action? What am I missing there?

I think they banned it years ago based on a voter approved ballot initiative. It's easier to get issues on the ballot via petition in California than in most states. I'm not sure I feel they banned it totally or just for university admissions. One effect was a lot more Asians, and fewer blacks, got admitted.

I ran the maintenance shop for a small trucking company in California about 40 years ago. The owner of the place was firmly committed to hiring female drivers. His take on things was pretty basic- - - -"They're sitting on what most of the men drivers are looking for!!
Jerry

A woman's vote counts double.

Rock Chuck: I suffered under a governmental entity that was hell bent on forcing "affirmative action" onto every employee of said entity.
It resulted in horrific losses in efficiency and monies.
For 29 years I watched "affirmative action" completely destroy the morale and the will to do a "great job", of literally thousands of employees of that entity.
The demonrats have been pushing "affirmative action" for just over half a century now and it has alienated more people and done more harm than anything it may have aided!
We (the persons who suffered under the horrific and self destructing affirmative action policies!) simply referred to this horror as "rig a jig a job"!
Sad.
Indeed the United States of America would be way better off without this horror!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

The old insult 'token nygger ' was all but forgotten until AA dragged it out again

About the same time, fresh out of the USMC, I applied for a job at Shell Production. Servicing gas pipe lines, dealing with telemetry and such, basically something a former USMC radar tech could handle. They only wanted women. They would teach women what a wrench and a screwdriver is, they did not want men at all. I know this because I applied and my buds girl friend that wasn't technical got a job and was trained from ground zero.

Irritates me to this day. I think I know how many blacks feel when they perceive that they have been discriminated against.