WHAT IF? by R.C.

Candidate John Cunningham remarks: "Let’s eliminate the federal Department of Education. All education is local — it’s done by the cities and towns." When I read those words, I felt a shock of recognition. That very morning, I had been handed my latest task as a computer systems analyst for a local school district. I was to determine how to revise our software to comply with the USDOE's latest unfunded mandate regarding race and ethnicity.

Currently, as required by law, our system classifies each of our teachers and other employees into one of five different racial/ethnic categories. The new regulation not only adds a sixth category, but requires that employees can now belong to multiple categories--leading to a total of 64 possible combinations per employee. (Actually, the situation may be more complex than that, since there are some unresolved questions about the distinction between race and ethnicity.)

During an economic downturn, when our local school system is laying off reading coaches and other personnel directly involved in educating our children, we will be spending many thousands of dollars modifying our rather antiquated computer system to comply with this rule alone. By my preliminary estimate, we will need to implement two major file conversions, modify and retest almost 150 different programs, and write a number of new functions and subroutines reporting race in various ways. Not included in this estimate are the resources required to collect and enter this data, or to determine how to classify the occasional employee who does not fit into any of the designated categories, or to determine exactly how the ratio of X-minority to Y-minority will be calculated when some employees are both X and Y. Around my department, analysts are shaking their heads in bewilderment and asking: "Why are we doing this?" The only answer, of course, is that in a top-down, bureaucratic, statist system, we are required to do so.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that this latest regulation comes at a time when the latest scientific findings debunk the very concept of "race," showing that our genetic differences have little or nothing to do with socially assigned racial categories.

We have a dedicated and talented team, and we will complete this conversion. But I cannot help asking: "What if?"

What if all the talent spent complying with the demands of bureaucrats, not only in our department but in every business and organization across America, were instead dedicated to serving the needs and wants of real human beings, as expressed through the free marketplace?

What if our whole system was bottom-up, driven by the values of free individuals, rather than top-down and driven by the whims of government officials, particularly at the highest federal level?

What if employees were evaluated purely on the basis of job performance, so that the whole apparatus of race, skin color, and ethnicity could be eliminated?

What if all the resources wasted in complying with useless and coercive governmental regulations were redirected to productive ends?

One thing is certain: We need to give our support to candidates like John Cunningham, who have the vision to ask such questions and to act upon them.