Unfit to Print: Jayson Blair and Attacks on Affirmative Action
By Julianne Malveaux

I'm addicted to the printed word so I was as shocked and appalled as the rest of the world when Jayson Blair, the young New York Times reporter, was revealed as an all-out prevaricator. I mean, the young man plagiarized, invented and created stories out of thin air. He did it for a long time and, though people raised questions about him, he was always able to answer their questions. At the end of the day he got caught, raising questions, yet again, about journalistic integrity. And that should be the end of this column and the end of the story, but it's not.

Too many White folks started with Jayson Blair and ended up raising questions about affirmative action. Now, when the eminent historian Doris Kearns Goodwin was busted plagiarizing, no one asked about female historians. When Stephen Glass spun a series of tales in The New Republic and was rewarded by a six-figure book contract, nobody raised questions about the way he got to the paper. And, when Ruth Shalit, another New Republic writer, was caught pilfering quotes, nobody raised questions about The New Republic's fact-checking or hiring policies. And Shalit is now back in journalism. I digress. My point is that the Jayson Blair imbroglio has as much to do with affirmative action flaws as the Stephen Glass case has to do with flaws in the mentoring process.

The anti-affirmative action crowd are like dogs with bones. When they see an African American do something disgraceful, they assume it is because of affirmative action. But affirmative action and diversity initiatives have never advocated people doing a substandard or unethical job. These efforts are about opening doors, giving people chances, allowing them to sink or swim, providing them with a little help, perhaps the coaching or mentorship that might naturally occur for them if they were White men, but holding them to a clear standard of work.