Issue: Critical Race Theory

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor for the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. This piece originally appeared in Washington Examiner.

There are times when we collectively understand that discrimination in hiring and admissions is wrong. Last week, for example, a Virginia-based technology firm was forced to pay more than $38,000 in penalties for a 2023 job advertisement in search of white applicants.

In a U.S. Department of Justice press release, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Civil Rights Division stated, “The Justice Department, working with other government agencies, will continue to hold employers accountable when they violate our nation’s federal civil rights laws.”

Michele Hodge, acting director of the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, joined Clarke in her justified outrage. She said, “We are committed to holding federal contractors accountable for outrageous discriminatory practices like this advertisement.”

Indeed, discrimination on the basis of race is outrageously wrong. Isn’t that what they are saying? 

Sadly, no. Rather, the Left enjoys levying discriminatory policy against whites and Asians, even if they are children. According to their hero, Ibram X. Kendi, these types of so-called anti-racist policies essentially are payback for history, and the only way to make up for unjust past discrimination is with unjust present discrimination.

So while we breathe a gasp of moral indignation together about the “whites only” job advertisement at the technology company, our unity, ironically, ends there.

Take medical schools as another example. Many leftist medical schools, such as the University of California, Los Angeles, have reportedly engaged in race-based admissions despite a state law prohibiting such policies. 

In order to achieve racial balance, the schools’ metrics have changed from grades and test scores to, well, mostly just race. They may as well hang a sign that says, “Asians need not apply because we don’t need any more of you.” 

Does the Left have a problem with this? No, it seems they don’t. But they should.

First, discrimination against any race is morally reprehensible and unconstitutional. 

That aside, admissions programs and applications based on so-called equity rather than merit are quite literally dangerous for our health and safety. Following UCLA’s focus on race in admissions, their rank and students’ performance dropped precipitously.

The unintended consequences of such policies for specialized fields, such as medicine, are disastrous. Obviously, no one wants an incompetent doctor, even wealthy leftists. 

As the public becomes aware of such considerations in medical schools, they will use information shortcuts to select doctors who have not been given “special consideration” in medical school, which without doubt would include heterosexual Asian males. Their competence will be as guaranteed as it gets because it’s crystal clear that no one is offering them any special favors.

Meanwhile, very qualified individuals belonging to racial groups that have been given a “helping hand” for the sake of “equity” will be viewed with a lens of skepticism and perhaps even avoided. Eventually, reviews and research will show who the most competent doctors are, and which ones have no business practicing medicine.

And guess who gets stuck with the incompetent doctors from the “do-good” medical schools? Poor people. Is that the equality we are targeting in America? I hope not.

So, while we rightly admonish firms with racist hiring policies that are in search of only white applicants, it is also time that we join together in the realization that merit, not equity, wins the day. And all selection decisions based on racial identity are not only immoral, but counterproductive.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, a member of the Coalition for TJ, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. Originally appeared on The Federalist.

On March 31, the National Organization for Women argued on social media that opposing males in women’s sports is “white supremacist patriarchy at work.” After receiving a torrent of justified criticism, the organization deleted its post on April 5.

The National Organization for Women is using tactics that are pervasive among white leftists. Founded by almost all white feminists in 1966, the white leaders of the organization since have used the concept of racial intersectionality to garner support for advocating clear sexism such as allowing males in women’s sports. It seems they believe that adding the racial element allows white liberals to castigate anyone who opposes their agenda as racist.

Politically blackfacing an issue, such as fairness in women’s sports, is actually what is racist. White liberal elites are using race to promote one of their pet projects that has nothing to do with race and is opposed by a majority of the black population. In a Pew Research Center survey, 68 percent of black respondents agreed with the statement that gender is determined by sex at birth. In the same survey, 61 percent of white respondents also agreed that gender is determined by sex at birth. 

Setting aside the confusion in the deleted post of what “patriarchy” actually means, it is misleading to suggest that allowing men in women’s sports is somehow a black-supported issue and that opposing it is white supremacy. But that is the overplayed battle tactic of white liberals: anyone who disagrees is racist.

White Liberal Hypocrites in Fairfax County

In fact, recent pictures of the transgender movement’s rallies and political resolutions show that the vast majority of activists in this realm are white. In March, for example, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted 9-0 to commemorate Transgender Visibility Day on Easter. Fairfax County is racially and ethnically diverse, the second most diverse county in Virginia. Yet the picture of the celebration following the resolution to commemorate the made-up holiday captured, with very few exceptions, almost all white smiling faces. The same is true for Fairfax City’s local council when they passed a similar proclamation days later.

White leftists on Fairfax County’s school board have also used race in their rise to power. They pay a great deal of lip service to being “anti-racist,” a poorly named, unjust concept that includes the use of present discrimination to remedy past discrimination. These school board members have promoted the overtly racist, “anti-racist” policies against Asian students to that end, dismantling gifted education at the district’s magnet school, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.

In an attempt to racially diversify the student population, Fairfax County’s school board members implemented admissions changes that replaced merit with equity. Ironically, both the chair and vice chair of the racist, “anti-racist” school board, elected by their fellow board members, are white leftists. These hypocrites refuse to live by their own race-baiting rules.

Silencing Brown Parents in Montgomery County

While local politicians from Fairfax County and Montogomery County, Maryland, discuss race incessantly, the rainbow mafia pushing transgender ideology on our children in public schools is notably white, and the public dissent is coming from a large group of mostly brown and black parents.

In March 2023, Montgomery County’s school board revoked its opt-out option for LGBT curriculum materials, including for students in the district’s elementary schools. Three families sued the district, arguing that the decision violated their First Amendment rights. In addition to the lawsuit, there were large protests at Montgomery County’s school board meetings where parents demanded the restoration of the opt-out option.

On June 6, 2023, mostly Muslim parents staged a massive protest during a school board meeting. Asra Nomani, a journalist, covered the protest and posted a video on X. It shows the majority black and brown parents chanting the phrase, “Protect our children.” They were demanding the fundamental right to guide their children’s upbringing and have a say about what they learn at their public schools. In contrast, the video also shows a group of white liberal activists donning rainbow gear and supporting the district’s continued indoctrination of the children.

Leftist Colonizers Define Black Identity

Potentially their gravest and most racist offense is when these white leftists, such as the ones leading the National Organization for Women or mandating the indoctrination of children in public schools, try to pontificate about what black people should believe and how they should vote. In 2020, for example, President Joe Biden infamously told voters, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

I wonder what Biden would say about the increasing number of black voters supporting Donald Trump for president in 2024. Some surveys estimate that Trump’s support among black voters in November could be double what it was in 2020. Would Biden dare now to claim those voters are not black?

And there is little worse than the leftist vitriol toward black conservatives. Justice Clarence Thomas, for example, referred to his Senate confirmation hearings to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court as “a high-tech lynching.” 

Black leftist pundits sometimes join their liberal white counterparts’ demands for ideological homogeneity among the black population. Michael Eric Dyson, a black professor, made an abhorrent comment suggesting that Winsome Sears, the first female black lieutenant governor of Virginia, is a ventriloquist for white supremacy. Referring to Sears, he said, “There is a black mouth moving, but a white idea running on the runway of the tongue of a figure who justifies and legitimates of the white supremacist practices.”

It seems many leftists agree that diversity of political thought among black Americans is unacceptable. If they veer from the preset course the left determines, then these leftists villainize them as tools of white supremacy incapable of independent thought.

White leftists, such as those leading the National Organization for Women, are not the kind and inclusive people they claim to be. Make no mistake: Anyone deviating from their political inclinations should not expect the so-called inclusivity preached in the white leftists’ sermons.

To manipulate voters, these leftists are blackfacing their pet issues to gain legitimacy. And deleting one post on social media does not erase that fact.