The National Association of Scholars (NAS) is committed to rational and sensible, constitutional and intelligent approaches to governance and traditional effective educational policies and practices.  I have been a member for many years and support their efforts and advocacy.

This week, I received a communication from the NAS that pertains to problem of higher education admissions' racial quotas and set-asides.  The NAS is opposed to discrimination in any aspect of American life.  Peter Wood, president of the NAS, points out in his communiqué the crazy opinion of federal judge Burroughs, who opined that Harvard's race-based, quota admission policies discriminating against Asians were acceptable because the university meant well.  Well, isn't Judge Burroughs special, and are you surprised to know she is a Middlebury College and Penn Law graduate appointed by BHO?  Burroughs apparently thinks Harvard's capping of Asian admissions was acceptable to boost the number of underqualified black students.

Dr. Wood and the NAS stand strong in their position that university admissions quotas and preferences are condemnable and violate the civil right laws of America.  Admissions process cheating has been well documented by many, for example Professor Tim Groseclose in Cheating: An Insider's Report on the Use of Race in Admissions at UCLA.  There is no way to measure the harm and mischief created by institutional discrimination misconduct, including the well qualified applicants denied.  The NAS is hell-bent to push back on this injustice and has committed efforts, money, and lawyering to stand for fairness in admissions for higher educational institutions.

Washington State Initiative 200 created a statute that intended to prohibit quotas and discrimination, and the statute declared:

The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

The progressives have had a hissy fit, even though the statute is the model of a constitutional protection for citizens against discrimination.  Decades of efforts to overturn Proposition 200, however, were smothered by the deep snows of the Cascades and the wariness of Washington voters.  Then, on the last night of its 2019 session, the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed Initiative 1000 to overturn the ban on preferential treatment voted in 20 years ago.

Referendum 88, supported by the NAS, was introduced and promoted by Washington Asians for Equality, who gathered enough signatures on a petition to force the ballot measure, Referendum 88.  The Democrats did some trickery with the ballot language of the referendum; the way to vote against racial preferences is to vote "no" on Referendum 88.  Are you surprised?

The preference/quota/discrimination/set-aside project and its army are well funded and keep marching from Harvard to Seattle.  Dr. Wood and the National Association of Scholars are working to stop the preference scam in education and society.

John Dale Dunn, M.D., J.D. is a physician and inactive attorney, member of the National Association of Scholars.