George W. Bush opposes affirmative action, at leastintheory; in practice he has an affirmative-action record that might have made BillClinton proud. According to Time magazine, Bush "has appointed more women to positions of power and influence than any president in history." He even has a diversity policy that requires 30 percent of administration jobs to be filled by women. He seems to have sought racial diversity as well: According to his personnel director, Clay Johnson, minorities constitute 20-25 percent of people selected for top government jobs.
Conservative opponents of affirmative action who once derided PresidentClinton for bean counting have generally exercised their right to remain silentabout Bush's efforts to diversify. Their reticence is not surprising. They alsohave declined to criticize his dad's affirmative-action appointment of SupremeCourt Justice Clarence Thomas. (I imagine that even people who did not believethat Justice Thomas harassed Anita Hill did believe that the elder Bush selected him at least partly because of race.)
Liberals have been flummoxed by the demographic diversity of the younger Bush'sappointments. They're loath to praise his concern for diversity, even though itreflects their own success in expanding opportunities for women and racialminorities. It's difficult to celebrate the political ascension of youropponents:"We knew if we kicked the doors open, conservative women would walk through,"former NOW president Patricia Ireland ruefully remarked. But liberals couldlearn from Bush's affirmative-action program: It illustrates the falsities ofidentity politics. Race, ethnicity, sex, and sexual orientation are not reliableor appropriate predictors of ideology.
That may sound obvious, but it challenges a fundamental premise of left-wingcrusades for diversity: the belief that heterosexual women, lesbians and gays,and racial minorities are united by their respective histories of subordination,resulting in reliably liberal group-think (so long as they are true tothemselves). Diversity is not only valued as a demonstration of equal access andan essential element of economic equality; it's also considered a virtualguarantee that particular political perspectives will be voiced and strengthened.The power of this belief--that all members of "victim groups" do or should thinkmore or less alike politically--is reflected in the vituperative denunciation ofconservative African Americans as race traitors, the dismissal of conservativewomen as "male-identified," and the presumption that conservative homosexuals are"self-hating."
Unfortunately, as Bush's diverse judicial nominations are considered, we'rebound to hear more epithets like these. Conservatives will pounce on them asevidence of liberal bias and intolerance of dissent. They'll have a point. Thepatronizing condemnation of conservative women, gays, and racial minorities is atriumph of circular reasoning: If you dismiss all right-wing women as morally orpolitically deviant, you never have to reconsider your assumption that liberalismis a female norm. You also avoid the intellectual challenge of arguing aboutlegal and political ideas, by relying on personal accusations of disloyalty. Youbetray the progressive ideal of individualism by imputing political views topeople on account of race, sex, or sexual orientation. Civil rights struggles aresupposed to give people more freedom of thought and behavior, not less.
Identity politics has atavistic appeal, I admit. I'm not above wondering whymany Jews vote Republican or give large sums of money to Harvard. I was alwayspersuaded by the bumper sticker that proclaimed, "If men got pregnant, abortionwould be a sacrament." There is even some empirical evidence that people withcommon experiences of discrimination and common cultures do form politicalcliques, as voters or legislators. African Americans tend to vote Democratic.Female lawmakers generally pay more attention to women's rights, health care,child care, and other policy initiatives involving family life (according to10-year-old studies by the Center for American Women and Politics at RutgersUniversity).
But even if the collective political preferences of racial minorities, women,or gay people could be discerned, the preferences of particular individuals areunpredictable. Trends and averages obscure individual variations. Also,collective preferences may reflect simple political expedience: Perhaps femalelegislators pay more attention to child care and other "women's" issues becauseof biases that limit their credibility as experts on "men's" issues, like foreignrelations. When sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and race no longer occasiondiscrimination, tribalism will likely have a diminished effect on politicalallegiances.
I'm not suggesting that people will cease forming associations based onpersonal experiences or social and religious affinities--associations that cannurture political advocacy. The history of the women's movement, dating back 150years, exemplifies the evolution of private grievances into public demands. Thenineteenth-century Women's Christian Temperance Union, for example, reflected theanxiety and anger of women who were abused by alcoholic husbands. But themarriage of personal and political concerns has hardly been unique to feminism orto other civil rights movements involving historically victimized groups. Parentsconcerned about their children's health initiate campaigns to clean up theenvironment. Families dissatisfied with the public schools lobby for educationalreforms: smaller classrooms, higher education budgets, or the censorship ofwhatever they deem dangerous or offensive speech. The political power of thereligious right today grew out of personal disgust with secular culture.
Voluntarism, the formation of political associations, can be divorced fromidentity politics. In fact, the tendency to group people according to theirimmutable identities--as women, homosexuals, or people of color--challenges thebelief in self-invention that helped shape the associational tradition.Demographic identity groups are not exactly voluntary. As political theoristNancy Rosenblum notes in her insightful book Membership and Morals[reviewed by Kathleen Sullivan in "Defining DemocracyDown," TAP, November-December 1998], identity groups compel association. They presume that the voice of the group into which you are born is or should be your voice, whether or not you acknowledge it. They condemn as traitors people who stray from the presumptively correct ideologies of their groups.
If your identity is unchangeable, it chooses you. But one tenet ofAmerican culture, reflected in the voluntary tradition, has been a belief thatyoucan select or at least help shape your own identity. If you can't choose yoursex, race, or genetic disposition toward disease, you can choose your group orseries of groups, your religious affiliation, your causes, and yourideals--remaking yourself (and perhaps society) in the process. Meanwhile, groupsnegotiate their own surprising developmental changes. At its inception in thelate nineteenth century, the now quasi-libertarian National Rifle Association hadclose ties to the military and prospered with the aid of government handouts.
Identity need not be immutable for individuals or groups; politicalorientation will not be predictable so long as freedom to associate--anddisassociate--is respected. Affirmative action promises economic equality, nottheideological consistency of its beneficiaries. If characteristics like race, sex,and sexual orientation can help situate us in a political community, they oughtnot to imprison us there.
