Legal System

Thomas DiLorenzo defends tying agreements and exclusive contracts.

The civil rights juggernaut has now invaded sports, that one-time redoubt of pure merit and standing embarrassment for affirmative action. Not only does this latest beachhead presage significant real-world consequences, it reveals something of the strategy of the privilege lobby.

Around the country, sports entrepreneurs have been responding to a perceived social problem by doing what they do best: efficiently serving customers. The advent of the work-out craze led to the blossoming of a prospering health-club industry. Along with growth, however, came certain problems, some of which are the result of men and women using the same fitness facilities.

Recent blows to quotas in public employment and education such as California's Prop. 209 and the Hopwood decision have spurred efforts to entrench racial preference more securely in the private sphere. This has inspired its advocates to invent strange defenses that were undreamed-of thirty-four years ago, when quotas were introduced. Among the most perverse is that quotas are economically beneficial.

No doubt punishment serves many purposes. It can deter crime and prevent the offender from committing further crimes.

End the lies, smears, and attacks against average people for their supposed intractable racism. Stop the federal occupation of local school districts in the name of racial balance. Dethrone the federal judges who impose de facto quotas in every public institution and mandatory preferences in every private one. Come clean on the real purpose of racial politics, which is not justice but power and political spoils.

Everyone knows about the class-action lawsuit against Hooters, the restaurant featuring waitresses in shorts and tight t-shirts. In the settlement, Hooters paid $2 million to the men who were denied the opportunity to serve as Hooter Girls, another $1.75 million in lawyer's fees, and created three new "gender-neutral positions."

Today's antitrust enforcement reduces tragedy to farce. A federal judge recently upheld the Federal Trade Commission's charge that Toys R' Us conspired to prop up the price of Mr. Potato Head. Why? Because the retail outlet liked to make exclusive deals.

Andrew Koppelman is clearly a writer of considerable intelligence, and exceptionally well-read in political philosophy, ethics, and law. But he puts his talent in the service of a bizarre idea.

George P. Fletcher, Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence at Columbia Law School, thinks that the Timothy McVeigh trial teaches us an important lesson about the Constitution.