Without preference

Lawmakers last week must have felt odd working on a proposed law that that would prevent the state from discriminating against or giving preferential treatment to anyone on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. At least half the bill already is on the books and there is no specific evidence that the other half is a problem in Maine.

The Maine Human Rights Act echoes the proposal’s language throughout, word for word in some places. Where it differs, however, is that the Human Rights Act bars discrimination but does not also bar preferential treatment. How a state entity could give preference to someone without discriminating against someone else is for lawmakers to parse; though broadly titled the Maine Civil Rights Act of 1999, the bill’s sole interest seems to be programs at the University of Maine, which in the last year or so has attempted to expand diversity among students and faculty.

The university says it doesn’t hire people based on race or on any of the other prohibitions in the bill. The one program that comes close is something it calls the Opportunity Hire Fund, which provides money to hire excellent prospects with unique backgrounds quickly, without the usual bureaucratic red tape. The last person hired was Russian. The university also has maintained for many years a tuition waiver for Indian students, although it is hard to believe lawmakers would pass a bill that would eliminate that program.

Neither the university, nor any other state agency, should hire a person based on race or national origin, but it can recognize that exposing its students to a wider range of opinions and cultures is a positive part of its mission. To do that, it must expand its applicant pool to include as diverse a population as possible. Nothing sinister about that — it’s an accepted part of affirmative action that even supporters of the bill say would not be affected by the legislation.

The benefits of doing this are evident to university officials, who see approximately half of their graduates finding jobs out of state in areas almost always more culturally diverse than this region of Maine. If these students are going to be prepared to succeed, they will need to know something about the world beyond the Piscataqua River. Even graduates who remain in state would benefit from this exposure.

LD 703 arrives at an unusual time in the life of the university system. Every campus has been aggressively trying to expand enrollment, and most have been successful this year. This means that far from the image the bill might suggest of a local white student being passed over for a minority student, the theme at UMaine these days is, if you qualify academically, c’mon in.

All of this may leave legislators puzzled. While not wanting to endorse hiring based on race or sex, they will have a hard time identifying a specific instance to support the bill. Perhaps there’s a shelf they could stick it on until such a problem arrives.