Waterville, Me. Where dreams of Harvard go to die.

I’ve wasted an hour or so of my time debating whether or not to respond to this, so I might as well. My productivity, or lack thereof, pains me but I cannot resist. My prior post suggested in jest that I may as well be next in line for a Supreme Court slot. This joke is an old one, at least in the blogosphere. In truth, Miers is much more qualified than me. Although I win the clash of the law degrees by a wide margin, she is 60 and I am 29 so it should not be a surprise that her professional track record is heftier than mine. Brushing aside the fact that: (1) Miers went to a second-rate school; (2) Miers manned a firm that while large, is not a national player; and (3) I have a constitutional philosophy (though inchoate) and Miers apparently has none at all, Miers vs. Me is a rout. We all understand that, that’s why the post was intended to be a joke. Wayne and Claire reliably comment because I suspect they’re the only nerdos I know that actually give two shits about the issue. I respond. The comments are snarky, and concern academia, politics, and business’s selective application of the term, underrepresented minority. Meaning Asians are shit out of luck. Then, an anonymous poster states the following:

“you are wrong. the definition of URM is the white man who has to settle for colby because his spot at harvard was taken by black people.”

I didn’t appreciate the initial declarative. I try to keep this under wraps, but much of the terribly arrogant fifth grader that I was managed to survive my adolescence and young adulthood. When it comes to certain things in life, I consider myself rarely, if ever, wrong. But I am an adult and after my instinctive reaction passed, my resolve to privately declare the poster a dumbass and leave it at that waned. The truth is, I sympathize with the thrust of the poster’s statement, if not the exact way in which it was articulated.

I think we can all agree that this is a galling thing to say, particularly if said by a white person. Perhaps galling isn’t the right word. How about, inappropriate for a professional setting, or for that matter, any circumstance in which a modicum of political correctness is required. I personally hate that shit. The fact is, white indignation over affirmative action is a widely-held sentiment, and honest discourse on the topic requires that it not only be expressed, but addressed. It’s too easy to retort, “fuck you and the six centuries you’ve spent oppressing us, whitey.” That sort of casual racism towards whites isn’t any less deplorable because it’s being leveled by the nominally oppressed.

A little aside on political correctness: we’ve been recruiting for our summer program over the last month and the recruiting committee meets weekly to vet candidates. It’s a large committee and since it’s populated by lawyers, the meetings aren’t short of blunt appraisals of candidate worth. But nearly all of these attorneys turn into willy-nilly pussies when it comes to matters of race. We had an international student from China who expressed an interest in litigation. He doesn’t go to an elite school, but his school’s not so shitty that we’re beyond his reach. Being a Chinese international student, his spoken English was crap. Nobody said this, but it was easily inferred. His interviewers opined that he “wasn’t a good fit for the firm,” “may take a lot of work,” and “would probably be better served by a firm with a more developed international transactional practice.” This irked me, so I cut to the chase and asked, “Does he speak English well?” This sparked a second round of hemming and hawing: “Well, it’s not ideal but he’s certainly fluent,” or “He has an accent, but that’s not what I meant by a good fit.” Finally, a lit associate a year above me point blank said, “Given his accent and less than ideal command of the language, I don’t think he’ll be as good as other candidates with similar qualifications, but without those same limitations. That’s why I recommended that we deny him an offer.” Hallelujah. I concurred, thus signaling that the only asian in the room had given his assent that there wasn’t anything racially untoward about dinging this guy based on a fair and realistic appraisal of how he would fare at our firm. The Man (and his liberal sensibilities) could rest easy tonight. Imagine that. Not speaking English so good isn’t a desired trait in a litigator.

I need to work. I’ll finish this later. Hopefully, I’ll actually get to my point.