The diversity bailout

More on the role of "equal opportunity" lending practices in the current crisis:

If the bank gave loans to white people like my wife with no credit, or bad credit, the bank would later look bad if it was sued for discrimination, even if it was innocent. If a "fair-housing" group later sued the bank accusing it of discrimination . . . the bank could end up having to explain, at great expense, why it loaned money to my wife, but not to many minority borrowers who also had no credit or bad credit. . . .

(Via Michelle Malkin.) Which is to say that "equality" requires inequality. Achieving equality of outcomes means that different applicants are judged by different standards.

It's affirmative-action economics. Because it is justified under a "civil rights" rationale, no one in the banking industry could complain about it without creating evidence of bad faith that might later be used as evidence of discriminatory intent. If a bank were sued for discrimination by one of these (taxpayer subsidized) activist groups, and if it were then discovered that the bank's executives had complained about being forced to make high-risk mortgages to minorities, those complaints would constitute evidence of bias.

Enthusiastic cheerleading for "diversity" practices is now a basic qualification for management positions in corporate America, because companies are so vulnerable to discrimination complaints. The same principle is true, for example, within academia. Yes, a tenured professor is free to complain about the "diversity" charade, but that means he's never going to become department chairman or dean or university president. Larry Summers discovered this the hard way.

This is one of the reasons that so many people who aren't prejudiced against gay people nevertheless oppose measures that would make "sexual orientation" a protected civil-rights category. Having seen how civil-rights protection has so often become a weapon unfairly wielded to hurt and harm others -- and to silence criticism -- many Americans can easily imagine what abuses would arise under a gay-rights regime.