Excellent, excellent post. Could not have been more informative and incisive.

Good points but you need to keep the focus where it belongs and not try to smear the NBA as you go after Sterling who rightly deserves to be exposed. In a league that is overwhelmingly black, has numerous black coaches and executives and a black owner, your charge of racism by the league is absurd. The age restriction is simply puts a mild brake on the influx of high schooler coming into the league. Last I checked the rule didn't say only black high schoolers have to wait a year. As for the dress code, when you're an employee, the employer sets the rules. That the league wants a more professional look (or at least business casual) on their bench is their perogative. If you don't like it go get another job. The league has every right to control how it is presented to it's audience

Aside from the dress code comment, I agree. Good post.

I did some brief research on the case and found that Sterling had indeed settled a large housing discrimination case against him. I read the complaint and the DOJ press release in this case, but it is very brief. Does anyone have any more details on what happened? Is it his employees or him who made the incriminating statements (although since he settled one case he has to know if his employees are engaged in hte behavior.) This is pretty interesting stuff and I'd like to know some more.

I see strong parallels between this case and University admissions. Setting aside differences of law, I wonder if there is a moral difference between offering racial preferences in University admissions and offering them in housing.

Here are some of the questions that weren't asked: Was Sterling fostering diversity by prefering Koreans? Was there a "critical mass" of Koreans present in the buildings? Were Blacks and Latinos overrepresented in Sterlings buildings? Were Koreans historically discriminated against?

My point is, we are told that race-blindness is racist, and race must be considered as a factor in allocating resources such as university spots and municipal contracts. It is inevitable that minorities will compete for scarce spots. What moral compass should we use to choose between minorities besides diversity? Or perhaps Marc is advocating race-blindness among minorities, but not when whites are involved.

I have absolutely no idea what Sterling's motivations were in prefering Koreans. It is entirely possible he had no interest in diversity at all. However, Marc seems to be outraged at Sterling's racial preference regardless of its motivation. Since I am relatively sure this outrage does not manifest itself when Affirmative Action is involved, I wonder what moral distinction Marc makes between the two.

You had me up until the "racist dress code" thing. So... as a litigator, if you showed up in court wearing a T-Shirt and bling, it would be cool? What if you were a defense attorney and your client was a gang-banger? There's nothing "racist" about a dress code for NBA players while they are on the clock anymore than the courts asking you to dress respectfully for them. Period. No NBA player is hurting for clothes money, and they can still dress however they want on their own time.

Sheesh.

People should be able to rent to anybody they like...or dislike. Let the market decide.

Ditto on the dress code!
No one should be whining about that especially considering what players get paid just to grace others with their presence. I'm hoping you were using the word "racist" just to get a reaction. If any reference had made made to cornrows or dreads, etc. Then you could bring race into it because we know we're the only ones who rock that style.

As for Korean tenants, maybe Sterling likes the smell of Kimchee.

Ultramagnus:

I think you draw some good parallels. However, there are some very important demarcation points I considered while I thought about your comment. Housing discrimination or preferences affect different forms of capital in different ways than do admissions discrimination or preferences.

A property owner (in the U.S. it might be more appropriate to call property owners, “property stewards” as they may only “own” real property at the pleasure of our U.S., state, of municipal governments) has discretionary power. He or she may use this discretionary power to manipulate which folks get to use his property and how they use it. Our legal system does what it can to establish a system of economic incentives and disincentives to prevent property owners from using their discretionary power to perform perceptibly racist deeds and other deeds most U.S. Citizens would agree were unethical or uneconomical, although there are property owners who succeed at performing such deeds furtively. Property owners control access to and use of infrastructural capital, in the form of real property or shelter, which is a different form of physical capital from natural capital, such as raw materials.

Admissions professionals and those who prescribe the parameters according to which admission professionals may operate or wield their discretionary power, control access to the resources people could use to cultivate more human capital or social capital or cultural capital. These forms of capital are not physical in nature and may be used to provide social mobility opportunities, especially for those who do not inherit control over physical capital. They allow those born of lower socioeconomic strata to strive for control over more capital, in all its various forms.

I think admission professionals control access to far more valuable resources for U.S. citizens who are born into or enter the U.S. in lower socioeconomic strata. These are resources members of lower socioeconomic strata may use to cultivate their minds and social networks and the forms of capital that could be acquired or invested if their minds and social networks were used well. These are the forms of capital that make modern Horatio Alger stories possible for less affluent people (minorities are proportionally less affluent than their majority counterparts) in a society that neither completely strips control of physical capital away from the kin of a wealthy individual after his or her death nor gives the living non-kin equal opportunities to compete for control over that capital.

The upshot? I perceive moral differences.

1) Occasional race-based housing discrimination that favors Koreans is less unethical than the pervasive admissions discrimination that favors the socioeconomically elite or those who inherit control over physical capital (proportionately favoring more members of the majority race group over members of minority race groups). Occasional discrimination with respect to infrastructural capital does not prevent the person discriminated against from renting from a more ethical capitalist in a marketplace where this form of discrimination is rare. Yet, pervasive discrimination with respect to human, social, and cultural capital limits the ability of the person discriminated against to partner with or work for or rent from a more ethical capitalist.

2) If racial preferences in university admissions serve to better align their selections with enlightened meritocratic principles and are based on solid social science research that reveal the effects of the advantages members of the majority race and higher socioeconomic strata receive, then I think racial preferences in university admissions are morally different from and also morally superior to cases of racial housing preferences that do not seek to achieve similar goals for similar reasons.

Ed Hopkins got one thing really, really right: college and university admissions DO favor the socio-economically elite.

Why aren't the people who lambast race as one of many factors in admissions critiquing where the REAL bias is.

And one more thing: ONE black owner in the NBA does NOT make for a racial equity. When blacks become the owners as well as the workers, then the field will begin to be more level.

The complaint in this case is available online at:
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/housing/documents/sterlingcomp.htm

The DoJ press release is available online at:
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/housing/documents/sterling_pr.pdf

I think this is abhorrent. The NBA ought to consider whether he's worthy to own a team in light of his obviously bigoted views.

The NBA dress policy is not racist. How has wearing a suit to work for your job racist? NBA ball players are not just athletes, they are also business professionals. Anyone else who works for a large enterprise has to follow dress rules, why shouldn't the multimillionaires of the NBA?

It really is reaching, if not condescending, to suggest that African Americans can't wear business suits because of cultural reasons. That's ridiculous! Hello! Sean John? Anyone ever see Sean Combs in a suit? I have.

b-man,

no one, or at least not I, has ever said that blacks can't wear suits for cultural reasons. this is a gross oversimplification of the problems that black athletes face with regard to the ever expanding global market, new forms of racism, and the increasing paternalism of professional sports owners, to name a few. for more info on my take on the dress code, visit the articles section of my website: www.marclamonthill.com

ionolsen21 I just don not have anything to say right now.