Monday the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission formally deleted support materials permitting affirmative action in cases where it was deemed appropriate to overcome past or present barriers to equal opportunity in employment.  This action is not unexpected; it is a logical extension of Republican administration policy, premised on the idea that every individual in America should be treated equally and thus without a leg-up on any basis.  The EEOC took this action without public hearing, cancelling a hearing originally scheduled for today.

This action was taken over the dissent of the sole Democratic member of the Commission, who also objected to the cancellation of the meeting.  But the result was clearly coming, based on emerging Supreme Court and lower court case law.

The regulatory basis for the deleted provisions dated from 1979 and 1981; forty-seven years of US policy now has been stricken from the books.  Seems to me two issues are presented.  The first is the stated conclusion: is the Supreme Court in fact correct that the Constitution should be read as establishing a legally neutral playing field in the face of clear historical  bias operating in the marketplace?  The second is this: assuming historically there was bias in the marketplace thus denying equal rights to minority citizens, have facts evolved over the past decades so that today such de facto bias does not exist?  If the second conclusion is correct, then while the EEOC action seems to revoke a clearly useful and correct standard, its deletion is without practical effect.

If you are cynical about the current state of the marketplace, then the action of the EEOC is regrettable.  I am not smart enough to speak definitely as to the facts on the ground.  I wonder who is….