Stephen Zack's $800,000 Donation—"It Can Go To Having More Hispanic Professors"
09/13/2011
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I sometimes have this fantasy where, after hitting the lottery, I approach one of my alma maters with a proposal: a white student scholarship. Or, to be more subtle, a scholarship for "a student of any race or ethnicity not presently covered by any other race-or-ethnicity based scholarship." (At my law school, this would have knocked out Irish and Italian-descended students... but would have included English, Welsh, German and Portuguese.)

Of course, for those lawyers who've actually got money—and their own ethnic agenda—this is no fantasy. It's a reality. Steven N. Zack, the oh-so-Hispanic-looking graduate of Florida State University's law school, has given his alma mater $800,000.Stephen N. Zack

Zack, whose claim to being "Hispanic" is based on having a Cuban mother. has apparently made a career out of his claim to being "diverse", with boasts of being the first Hispanic elected president of the American Bar Association. His firm is the small but ultra-presigious Boies, Flexner & Schiller LLP, where David Boies is a name partner.

He'll get a building named for him—Stephen N. Zack Hall—and would like the money to be used to promote "diversity." Zack helpfully offers that the money "can go to having more Hispanic professors." [UF names building for Miami lawyer after $800,000 gift to promote diversity |Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and former Sen. Bob Graham will preside at the dedication ceremony of Stephen N. Zack Hall, By Stephanie Parra, Miami Herald, September 9, 2011]

How one "promotes diversity" with cold hard cash — beyond simply handing it out to non-whites — is a little hard to fathom. And never mind the legal dimension: do endowments designed to exclude a particular racial group — whites — even pass civil rights muster? Donate a million to your hometown for a whites-only park, and courts will strike down the bequest as "contrary to public policy".(See EVANS ET AL. v. ABNEY ET AL. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 396 U.S. 435 January 26, 1970)

Why should $800,000 to a university for "more Hispanic professors" be any different? Will any white students have the guts to sue the law school?

But no matter. When you're "promoting diversity", nobody bothers to ask about details.

By the way, Zack was set to appear appear at the building dedication with Sandra Day O'Connor, the former Supreme Court justice who famously predicted that the need for racial preferences would disappear by 2028. By then, she'll be 98. I wonder: did she set her prediction out far enough that she'd either be dead or too old to be grilled on it?

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