NYTimes editorialist: Assuming Conservative Animus Against Minorities?
UPDATE: Please note that shortly after posting this, a reader, in this comment below alerted me that Mr. Cohen is not a reporter, but “a member of the NYT editorial board.” When I had a moment to do a google search, I confirmed that this was so. The piece which linked the Cohen piece identified him as a “reporter.” Prior to joining the Times editorial board, Mr. Cohen most recently served as a reporter for Time. I have changed the post from its original content to reflect this knowledge. The main point remains. Just as a reporter has an obligation to report the facts, an editorial writer has the responsibility to present accurately the issues on which he opines.
I apologize for my error in the original post and am grateful to the reader for noting my mistake.
A few days ago, Glenn Reynolds (AKA Instapundit) linked Ilya Somin’s post on the Volokh Conspiracy taking apart NY Times Reporter Adam Cohen’s attack on what that reporter labeled “conservative judicial activism.” While Somin found the reporter’s argument “riddled with flaws and misrepresentations,” what struck me was how Cohen misrepresented recent Supreme Court decisions. He said conservative justices were using “their judicial power on behalf of employers who mistreat their workers, tobacco companies, and whites who do not want to be made to go to school with blacks.”
Mr. Cohen, the assistant editor of the New York Times editorial page, a man with a background in journalism, should know better than to so define those cases. If I had time, I would address all the cases he references, but for now, will just look at one — the decision striking down race-based school assignment policies in two states. In misrepresenting that case, Cohen reveals his bias against conservatives.
The case Cohen mentions did not involve the Court siding with whites being made “to go to school with blacks” (as the Times reporter puts it), but rather about school assignment decisions based on “racial guidelines” (in Kentucky) and on a point system to effect “overall racial balance” (in Seattle, Washington). The mother of the student from Kentucky wanted him transferred from a school 10 miles from his home to one “nine miles closer.”*
In Seattle, a white student qualified for a competitive biotechnology program at a public school, but lost his place “due to his race.” That city’s plan also hurt “students of color . . . who wanted to attend Franklin High, their neighborhood school, [but] were turned away because the district gave those seats to white students in an attempt to balance the school’s racial mix.”
Hmm . . . doesn’t seem like a case of white students objecting to going to school with blacks. The issue was school districts’ racial guidelines, not racial integration.
The basic issue here is parents wanting their children to attend schools closer to home or to attend the public school program best suited to their needs. Or students wanting to attend the same school with friends from their neighborhood.
Instead of looking to those facts, Mr. Cohen sees the issue as whites not wanting to attend school with blacks, despite the fact that the white students in this cases would be attending schools that were racially mixed. It almost seems he’s commenting on a case in the 1950s where the facts were far different than those in the decision recently handed down.
Alas that Mr. Cohen, like so many others on the left, assumes that conservative objections to affirmative action programs or to the use of racial, gender or sexual orientation criteria are due to animus against the minority. Even when members of minority groups criticize such policies. For example, when I object to certain supposedly gay-friendly policies on libertarian grounds, people accuse me of self-hatred — or trying to please (again supposedly) gay-hating conservatives.
Cohen’s description of the race-based school assignment cases is just another example of the assumptions those in the MSM make about conservatives. Like all too many who comment to this blog, they would rather take issue with a conservative straw man drawn in their own imaginations than with the real arguments we make everyday.
- B. Daniel Blatt (GayPatriotWest@aol.com)
* I would rather have quoted a news article, but, in my google search, I found only a handful of articles which addressed the facts at issue in this decision. Most just reported the decision. Maybe that’s why Cohen made the assumption he did. But shouldn’t a reporter check on the facts of a court decision before writing about its result?
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That NY Times piece is clearly labeled as “opinion,” not reporting. While I agree that opinion writers should check their facts (including the writers on this site), it seems silly to complain about bias in an editorial. Criticize it, disagree with it, but you can’t really expect opinion pieces to be fair and objective. This isn’t evidence that the MSM is “biased” against conservatives any more than the WJS editorial page is evidence that it is “biased” against liberals. If you’re going to claim bias, you need to find evidence of it in actual news reporting.
Comment by JonboyDC — July 13, 2007 @ 6:38 pm - July 13, 2007
In fact, the tiniest bit of research showed that Adam Cohen is not a reporter at all, but a member of the NYT editorial board.
Comment by JonboyDC — July 13, 2007 @ 7:03 pm - July 13, 2007
[...] Original post by GayPatriotWest [...]
Pingback by Politics: 2008 HQ » Blog Archive » MSM Reporters: Assuming Conservative Animus Against Minorities? — July 13, 2007 @ 8:07 pm - July 13, 2007
Silly to complain about bias in an editorial? I’m not complaining about his opinion, but about his facts. He misrepresents the case. And that misrepresentation shows his bias against conservatives.
Even if he’s not a reporter, the point of the piece stands. And if Cohen is just an editorial writer, his comment would show how sloppy editorial page of the Times is with facts.
I realized the piece was an editorial, but Cohen was called a “reporter” in the blog post which alerted me to his opinion piece. As soon as I get a chance, I’ll check this and if it’s inaccurate will change the piece accordingly. And acknowledge my error.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — July 13, 2007 @ 8:21 pm - July 13, 2007
Juan Williams also did a piece for the NYTimes about June 29 called, ‘Don’t Mourn Brown’. The gist of it being, it is outdated. American society has evolved to the point that it is not needed anymore. He interviewed Thurgood Marshall, who was the NAACP legal defense fund lawyer in Brown vs. Board of Education, then a Supreme Court justice. Marshall told him the purpose of Brown was not to integrate schools. The problem was that the white schools had all the money. The black schools were getting by on used books and falling down buildings, so they wanted the integration just to have access to good education. It wasn’t about mixing people.
Comment by Ana — July 13, 2007 @ 8:28 pm - July 13, 2007
FACTS…either they are the basis for an opinion or they are not. In Cohen’s case they were not. Yet, if a survey of readers of that op ed was taken, I would hazard a guess the vast majority would believe the opinions expressed were factually based. Why would anyone deliberately mislead? Bias comes to mind.
Comment by Benj — July 14, 2007 @ 6:54 am - July 14, 2007
[...] Original post by GayPatriotWest [...]
Pingback by Politics: 2008 HQ » Blog Archive » NYTimes editorialist: Assuming Conservative Animus Against Minorities? — July 14, 2007 @ 12:27 pm - July 14, 2007
“Like all too many who comment to this blog, they would rather take issue with a conservative straw man drawn in their own imaginations than with the real arguments we make everyday.”
Well, now, that’s interesting. I didn’t know your represented the opinions of all conservatives, GPW. And do I really need to point out the irony of your accusing liberals of projection while you psychologize their motives yourself — and dismiss the psychologizing behind Cohen’s assertions.
By the way, have you read your “Hera’s” latest? It seems she is deeply confused by Bush’s behavior despite what she (finally) characterizes as his summary failure in nearly ever aspect of leadership. Ah, Hera. Will you defy the gods, GPW? Or is Peggy just short on facts and in need of your correction of them?
Comment by caligrafic — July 14, 2007 @ 1:01 pm - July 14, 2007
Califgrafic, you ask about Hera’s latest. What has Hillary said this time?
Comment by GayPatriotWest — July 14, 2007 @ 5:12 pm - July 14, 2007
Um, Caligraphic, all I’m saying is that Cohen’s misrepresentation of a recent Supreme Court suggests that he believes conservatives are racists. But, I did put a question mark in the title, leaving this item open for consideration.
And when did I ever say I represented the opinions of all conservatives?
As to Peggy’s latest. Not one of my favorites, but she makes some good points. More a reflective piece — as is her wont from time to time. I agree with some things she says, e. g. “Every major domestic initiative of his second term has been ill thought through and ended in failure.” And disagree with others, e.g., “His Iraq leadership has failed.” That latter statement is one of opinion.
In stating his opinion, Cohen misrepresented a Supreme Court case. And I stand by the line you pulled from my piece. For Cohen misrepresents a Supreme Court case in order to better attack the emerging conservative majority on the court.
This is not the first time a pundit (or other voice) on the political left has interpreted conservative opposition to racial guidelines as indicating white antipathy to associating with blacks. Indeed, it’s of a piece to many articles (and posts) I’ve read (and conversations I have had) with those calling themselves liberal who have said that conservative opposition to racial guidelines is their current means of expressing racist attitudes.
My suggestion that liberals believe conservatives harbor an animus against minorities is because Cohen’s misrepresentation of the case is
Comment by GayPatriotWest — July 14, 2007 @ 5:34 pm - July 14, 2007
What strikes me about that is how Cohen appears to evaluate the validity of Supreme Court decisions based on “who won”.
Where I grew up, justice was supposed to be blind (to who the opposing parties were)… and we evaluated SCOTUS decisions based on stuff like, um, the correctness of their legal reasoning.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — July 14, 2007 @ 9:17 pm - July 14, 2007
To illustrate the point: It can be shown that, in fact, the Supreme Court sides with Nazis.
Shall we not take that as a further instance of SCOTUS’ alleged “conservative judicial activism”? Because, remember – according to Cohen and others of his left-liberal ilk – conservatives are “Nazis”. Or at least racists, bigots, etc., *like* the Nazis. Right?
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — July 14, 2007 @ 9:25 pm - July 14, 2007
Sorry, I have to correct that one. It was the Illinois Appellate Court in the Skokie case.
But you get the idea. SCOTUS has “exercised its judicial power on behalf of Nazis” on other occasions. And – will again, I’m sure, the Nazis!!!
Why, they’ve even exercised their power on behalf of *liberals* before!
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — July 14, 2007 @ 9:38 pm - July 14, 2007
It does seem to me of late liberals and leftists accuse others, conservatives, of the things they themselves believe. How else do you explain Mrs Clinton and former Sen Edwards conspiring to eliminate all but 4 Democrat candidates from debates 16 months before the election? Two people are going to decide that we have 4 choices on the liberal side of the ballot. Could someone on the left please read for them the first amendment of the US Constitution. Yet it is people on the right accused of being Nazis.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — July 14, 2007 @ 10:46 pm - July 14, 2007
There’s plenty of that, and it’s been extremely well documented. However, in what twisted, alternative dictionary does “bias” relate only to reporting?
Comment by rightwingprof — July 15, 2007 @ 8:02 am - July 15, 2007
Going OT… but a bit related, because it’s an example of liberal animus against minorities:
Will the NYT editorialize about that?
Anyone who believes that: I have the finest imported macaca to sell you.
Latin men are very offended if called ‘maricon’; the English dynamic equivalent would perhaps be “f*cking faggot”. So let’s try it in English. Imus tells a candidate “One of my staffers thinks you’re not really Hispanic”, and the candidate replies, “If your staffer believes that, Don, he’s a f*cking faggot.” Followed by, “Well in the English I grew up with, ‘f*cking faggot’ means simply ‘gay’, not positive or negative.” Any left-lib want to spin and rationalize that?
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — July 15, 2007 @ 11:29 am - July 15, 2007
Source: click here.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — July 15, 2007 @ 11:30 am - July 15, 2007
Please, GPW, are you really unaware of how you are doing exactly what you’re accusing libs of doing? You generalize about the left on the basis of Cohen’s work. Why should we believe that your generalization is any more accurate than theirs? Facts, please.
Read your post over, man. It’s just one example of generalization after another: “like so many others on the left…,” “just another example of the assumptions those in the MSM make about conservatives,” “like all too many who comment to this blog…”
Would it be adequate to provide one example of the barely veiled racism of the right to disprove your point? That would take about 3.5 seconds.
(And of course this doesn’t even address the irony of your own admitted screw-up in your rush to make your point.)
Comment by califgraphic — July 15, 2007 @ 8:14 pm - July 15, 2007
Question: I’ve noticed stuff doesn’t post here right away. Is it, um (why do they always say “um” here?), screened before it posts? Surely, the Brothers Patriotic wouldn’t hold the comments so they can make an immediate argument contra departing points of view.
That looks pretty pathetic.
Just asking.
Comment by califgraphic — July 15, 2007 @ 8:18 pm - July 15, 2007
No, Califgraphic in #19, we don’t hold the comments so we can make immediate argument against your points. So, don’t rush to judgment and accuse us of being pathetic. Just shows that you base your attitude to us on your (false) assumptions about us.
We have filters in place to prevent spammers from putting junk in the comments. That filter sometimes holds things for approval which we get to when we check the blog.
Barely veiled racism of the right? Hmmmm. . . . Yeah, there are some racists on the right, but you won’t find them on the serious conservative blogs, magazines or editorial pages. Or even on the Supreme Court. It’d be interesting to see what you describe as “barely veiled racism.”
You do make a fair point about my generalizations. Yeah, I am making generalizations, but I understand that such generalizations don’t apply to all those on the left. Many do take the time to understand conservative ideas — and very often take issue with them in a thoughtful manner. Mr. Cohen doesn’t seem to be one of them. Perhaps if you showed some interest in serious discussion rather than snide comments, I would take the time to find such examples.
At least I admit my mistake. And I did provide one fact. Cohen did misrepresent a Supreme Court decision.
We see you make pretty quick assumptions about this blog. An assumption which proved to be false. I’ll be looking for you to admit your error.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — July 16, 2007 @ 2:58 am - July 16, 2007
Wow — what a mishmash. The editorial in the NYTimes was a legitimate opinion piece that did not “misrepesent” anything. A little more research would have revealed that the position taken by Mr. Cohen was not different than that advance by several amici in the case and, in some respects, the dissents. Just because the majority did not adopt the view of the issues before it espoused by Mr. Cohen does not mean that they are not valid or “misrepresent” anything. Is this piece reflective of the quality of postings here? Eek!
Comment by Tony — July 16, 2007 @ 7:21 am - July 16, 2007
Dan, speaking of posts being held up by the spam filter, what happens is that when a post is finally approved, it is placed at the time the post was originally made. If a thread is active, it effectively gets buried. I had one such post in moderation for over a day, and about ten or so posts occurred after it, before it was finally posted. Also, it changes the number of the posts, which can cause confusion when subsequent posts refer to previous posts by the numbers.
14, Gene, as for your point, I didn’t like Clinton’s “off the mike” comments either. However, it’s up to us to use our First Amendment rights, tell her to stuff her comments, and not let two people to decide who the top candidates should be. Like Howard Dean or not, we allowed the media to eliminate Dean from Democratic race in 2004 because of the scream. It’s time for voters to take responsibility for choosing the candidates and not the media, the candidates shenanigans, or the party committees.
Comment by Pat — July 16, 2007 @ 8:16 am - July 16, 2007
Um, sure, GPW, I’ll admit my mistake. Please tell me what it was.
Comment by califgraphic — July 16, 2007 @ 10:02 am - July 16, 2007
“And I did provide one fact. Cohen did misrepresent a Supreme Court decision.”
GPW, I think Tony in post #21 asks a very legitimate question, why do you think you proved that there was misrepresentation of the decision and not instead a disagreement about the meaning of the case as well as the meaning of Brown v. Board of Education and other post Brown civil rights cases? I think Tony is absolutely correct that the Cohen piece reached conclusions quite similar to the dissenting opinion–doesn’t mean he is right, but that is different than misrepresentation.
Comment by Brendan — July 16, 2007 @ 12:00 pm - July 16, 2007
The editorial in the NYTimes was a legitimate opinion piece that did not “misrepesent” anything.
Yes it did; it accused all conservatives of being racists and that the conservative justices on the court were pushing racism.
Quote:
Now we have conservative ones, who use their judicial power on behalf of employers who mistreat their workers, tobacco companies, and whites who do not want to be made to go to school with blacks.
What I find amusing about leftists like Cohen is that they whine about damaging Brown v. BOE, but then argue that it is perfectly legitimate to deny children the right to go to the school of their choice based on their skin color.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — July 16, 2007 @ 12:16 pm - July 16, 2007
Furthermore, given the fact that Democrats call successful black people like Condi Rice, Colin Powell, and Michael Steele “Oreos”, “Uncle Tom”, “house slaves”, and “Pouty Brown Sugar”, I think it’s high time the liberals like Cohen — and all his defenders here — explain their obvious and blatant racism.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — July 16, 2007 @ 12:23 pm - July 16, 2007
Don’t forget how they refer to Justice Thomas.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — July 16, 2007 @ 1:24 pm - July 16, 2007
Tony in #21, the issue in the case was racial guidelines. The parents who sued the school districts were not objecting to attending schools with blacks, but guidelines which prevented them from attending the schools their children wishes to attend. If the amici said it was about whites not wishing to attend schools with blacks, then they too misrepresented the facts.
Yeah, Pat in #22, I’ve noticed that too. I’ll see what I can do to fix it so it doesn’t screw up the order as some people address their comments to a specific post number.
Califgraphic in #23, your mistake (in #19) was your assumption about why the spam filter held up your comment.
And also, I also realized how in your original comment (#18), you helped make my point when saying you could easily provide examples of “barely veiled racism” among conservatives. Seems to me you’re looking for racism in conservative statements. So, please, please provide some examples (if you’d like), but be sure to look for them from serious conservative sources (rather then fringe ones).
Brendan in #24, Cohen said it was about whites not wanting to attend schools with blacks. All he need do is look at the facts of the case. And read the decision.. The court struck down the racial guidelines; it didn’t overturn Brown. If the dissent would see this decision as siding with whites who do not want to attend school with blacks, then the dissenting justices read into the majority opinion conclusions that were simply not there.
And let me stress one point. I realize I’m making generalizations which apply to some liberals, including many leading pundits (and bloggers) — and even a few of my acquaintances. But, I am not painting for too broad a brush because I realize that there are liberals (some of whom comment to this blog) who do take the time to understand conservative arguments and engage us on the level of ideas.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — July 16, 2007 @ 4:53 pm - July 16, 2007
Um, Dan, I did not make an assumption. I asked a question.
Should I apologize for asking a question? OK, I’m sorry I asked a question.
(If your posts were twice held back and then suddenly appeared with a rejoinder following them, you might ask the same question. Indeed, YOU might make an assumption!)
Comment by califgraphic — July 16, 2007 @ 6:50 pm - July 16, 2007
Califgraphic, your comment, “That looks pretty pathetic” suggests your question was merely a rhetorical one, as if you already knew the answer. Not only that, there was the tone of your sentence beginning with the word, “Surely.”
And no, you shouldn’t apologize for asking a question, but merely for making an assumption which proved to be false. Since the issue here is acknowledging mistakes.
I’m not quite sure why the system holds up certain comments. It may well be that you have changed the spelling of your name while commenting from the same IP address. But, I’m not sure
Despite your tone, I do have to say I admire your rhetorical style. Clever to use expressions I frequently use when I write.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — July 16, 2007 @ 7:11 pm - July 16, 2007
“Brendan in #24, Cohen said it was about whites not wanting to attend schools with blacks. All he need do is look at the facts of the case. And read the decision..” First the primary point of Cohen’s article was that the term “judicial activism” so loved by conservatives to attack judicial opinions they don’t like is disingenous, as conservative jurists engage in such activism as much as liberals–”Bush v. Gore”, for example.
As for his claim that the recent S. Court case striking down the Seattle School district plan was about “whites not wanting to attend schools with blacks” that is a perfectly legitimate read of the numerous attempts to strike down school integration plans. I am not disputing that you and others can’t make compelling arguments that this is not an accurate interpretation, but that is different from claiming “misrepresentation”.
No one claims that “Brown” was technically reversed; indeed if you read the opinion Roberts bases the plurality opinion claiming that this is what the holding in Brown would dictate, i.e. the constitution is colorblind. The real issue, and there is an enormous amount of legal scholarship as well as general opinion on this, is what does “Brown” mean and does it make sense to say we should ignore in light of history. Roberts and conservatives would say yes. I am more inclined to agree with Steven’s dissent where he notes that the plurality opinion that claims that before “Brown” schoolchildren were told what school they could go to based on the color of their skin, ignores that black children were so told, not white children.
Again, I am not disputing that one might disagree with such interpretation, but there are legitimate disputes here that can’t be dismissed by accusing the other side of misrepresentation.
Comment by Brendan — July 17, 2007 @ 11:55 am - July 17, 2007
As for his claim that the recent S. Court case striking down the Seattle School district plan was about “whites not wanting to attend schools with blacks” that is a perfectly legitimate read of the numerous attempts to strike down school integration plans.
And that, Brendan, is why your cries of “racism”, like your cries of “misogyny”, mean nothing.
Did you even read the details of the case?
However, five high schools — Ballard, Nathan Hale and Roosevelt in North Seattle; Franklin in South Seattle and Garfield in the Central Area — had more applicants than they could accommodate.
The “Open Choice” plan used a series of tiebreakers to allocate seats.
First, students with siblings at a given school were allowed to attend the same school.
Next came the “integration tiebreaker,” which sought to have the student populations at the oversubscribed schools mirror the racial makeup of the district as a whole.
Among Seattle’s 47,989 students in 1999, roughly 40 percent were white and 60 percent were students of color. If a child’s race would help bring a school’s students to a 40-60 split, he or she was assigned to that school.
For instance: Ballard would have been 67 percent white and 33 percent students of color without the tiebreaker in 1999, according to the district. With the tiebreaker, it became 46 percent white and 54 percent students of color, after 107 students of color were assigned to Ballard.
Yet because of the racial tiebreaker, Elizabeth Brose, a white student, could not attend Ballard or her other top choices.
Neither could Andy Kurfirst, who wanted to take advantage of Ballard’s Biotech Career Academy.
But according to you, the reason these kids and their parents were upset is because they didn’t want to go to school with black kids.
I guess that sounds better than the obvious fact — that students were denied the right to go to the school of their choice based on their skin color.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — July 17, 2007 @ 12:13 pm - July 17, 2007
ND30–you are not worth responding to — I read the decision, not just the details of the case. I was very clear that I think there can be reasonable disagreements about the case but with you there are no such things as reasonable disagreements. You are a shrill idiot.
Comment by Brendan — July 17, 2007 @ 1:48 pm - July 17, 2007
Brendan, I am well aware that the primary point of Cohen’s point was to level the charge of conservative judicial activism against the Roberts’ court. Indeed, the post which alerted me to the article did a great job of taking apart his argument.
My point was a narrow one, wondering why he would misprepresent the racial guidelines case.
As to your claim in the second paragraph that it was a “perfectly legitimate read of the numerous attempts to strike down school integration plans” to say it was about whites not wanting to attend school with blacks, that point just doesn’t hold up when you look at the facts of this case. And that’s the decision Cohen was addressing in his Op-Ed. Let me stress, Cohen’s point is a misrepresentation because when you look at the facts of the case, you see that the parents were suing to get their students into schools which would have a substantial proportion of minorities, including blacks. Not only that, in the post, I also noted that some black parents didn’t like the plan because their children could not attend their neighborhood school.
That’s why I claim Cohen has misrepresented the case. I’m sorry, if you just look at the facts of this case, you see it has nothing to do with racist attitudes, but racial guidelines which prevented students from attending their neighborhood schools — or getting into competitive public school programs.
I agree with Roberts’ holding that the constitution is colorblind.
And I strongly disagree with the notion that numerous attempts to strike down school integration plans were based on whites not wanting to attend school with blacks. In most cases, it was parents, black and white alike, wanting their children to attend the school closest to their home — and not be bussed across town.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — July 17, 2007 @ 2:07 pm - July 17, 2007
I was very clear that I think there can be reasonable disagreements about the case but with you there are no such things as reasonable disagreements. You are a shrill idiot.
Mhm.
Your idea of a “reasonable disagreement” is to call the parents and kids who filed this lawsuit racists who didn’t want to go to school with black kids.
As for his claim that the recent S. Court case striking down the Seattle School district plan was about “whites not wanting to attend schools with blacks” that is a perfectly legitimate read of the numerous attempts to strike down school integration plans.
However, as GPW eloquently pointed out, this was not an attempt by parents to keep black children OUT of schools; it was the fact that WHITE children were being denied entrance to racially-mixed schools in the first place, and second, that it was being done based on an arbitrary ideal number of black students to white students.
Which makes me wonder: why do you call “racist” those who oppose barriers to attendance based on skin color, and why do you support those who demand such barriers be maintained?
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — July 17, 2007 @ 2:49 pm - July 17, 2007