The 1980 Illinois Human Rights act specifically avoids use of the word “quota.” Shortly after President Clinton took office, one of his appointees was pulled back because she was labeled as the “Quota Queen.”
More recently in his speech on affirmative action, the president made clear that he did not support quotas. None of the civil- rights laws contain the word “quota,” and surveys of blacks’ and whites’ attitudes indicate that the general consensus is against quotas.
Question: If all laws preclude quotas and the general public (white, black and other minorities) is against quotas, and no one admits to practicing a quota system, then why does this word keep surfacing in speeches made by politicians?
Could it be that they want to frighten people by creating a phony monster and then come across looking good by promising to dispose of the monster that was never there in the first place? For those who remember, Willie Horton was the fear monster of the campaign between former President George Bush and Gov. Michael Dukakis.
If quotas were in practice nationally, you would not have the situation confirmed by statistics showing that African-American companies have only 1 percent of the overall contracts awarded by government nationwide.
If quotas were in practice in Illinois, you would not have the situation, as has been reported by the news media, that two-thirds of the jobs paying less than $30,000 are being held by minorities and women, while 87 percent of the jobs paying more than $50,000 are being held by white men.
In introducing Senate bill 1184, Sen. Walter Dudycz (R-Chicago) said that one of his concerns was a “quota system” in Illinois. When he finds it, I would like to be the first to see it. Until then, I hold to the belief that the quota system he speaks of is nothing more than a phony Willie Horton that is designed to play on the fears of those who are trying to hide their tendency toward racism.
