It is Illegal, Isn’t It?

I always wondered why DEI-style programs didn’t count as illegal discrimination. I once applied for a job with the Department of the Navy and was told I wasn’t qualified before they actually asked about my qualifications— just my demographics alone sufficed to exclude me from consideration. For any other demographic group, the law explicitly forbids such a ruling. For me and those in mine, somehow the discrimination was explicitly permitted, even required. 

I understood the arguments in favor of such programs as remedial of decades of discrimination and centuries of slavery. Not that my ancestors— red dirt farmers, coal miners, drovers, welders— had benefitted a great deal from any social injustice. One of my grandfathers manufactured concrete blocks by hand, until he got a job as a forklift operator. The other repaired long-haul tractor trailer trucks. Others had it harder still, but this sort of race-based remediation was at best a blunt instrument that didn’t much treat the problem. 

But what always confused me was how it wasn’t just illegal. It seemed to be, following from the principles. Yet every institution practiced some version of it, especially the government. 

Maybe it’s illegal after all.