Saturday, October 22, 2005 - 12:00 AM
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Miers backed hiring goals on race and gender
By Jo Becker and Sylvia Moreno
"Where has she come out for govt. mandated affirmative action?"
Not government-mandated, but have a look . . .
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — As president of the State Bar of Texas, Harriet Miers wrote that "our legal community must reflect our population as a whole," and under her leadership the organization embraced racial and gender set-asides and set numerical targets to achieve that goal.
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White House spokesman Jim Dyke said Miers' actions on the bar do not indicate how she might rule on the big question before the high court, which is how far government can go to promote diversity. "The best I can tell, this was a private-sector initiative to increase diversity, which is not the same thing as a government mandate of quotas," he said.
Miers, the first woman president of the Texas Bar, vowed in her first interview with the Texas Law Journal as president to "be inclusive of women and minorities."
During her tenure, she championed increasing the number of female and minority lawyers in the bar's leadership ranks and in law firms across the state, writing that "we are strongest capitalizing on the benefits of our diversity."
She and the board passed a resolution urging Texas law firms to set a goal of hiring one qualified minority lawyer for every 10 new associates. The board also restated support for a policy of setting aside a specific number of seats on the bar's board of directors for women and minorities.
Although Miers was not the author of either policy, board members who served with her said she fully supported both efforts.
So shouldn't a private organization be run without govt. intereference. Isn't that a conservative value.