Excellent editorial in the WSJ today on Airport screening.
Many have said that using race and ethnicity in airport screening is somehow “discriminatory” and “racist.” These same “civil libertarians” claim that we must screen randomly so that we don’t offend any particular ethnic group even though every airline terrorist attack for the past 30 years have all been committed by Muslim males between 17-40 years old.
Nobody is suggesting using ethnicity or religion as the only — or even the primary — factors in profiling possible terrorists. But it also makes no sense to take zero account of the fact that every suicide attack against U.S. aviation to date has been perpetrated by men of Muslim origin. While al Qaeda is no doubt seeking recruits who don’t obviously display such characteristics, that doesn’t mean we should ignore the likeliest candidates.
Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley has said “behavior will give you away regardless of what you look like.” as purported justification for opposing using race and ethnicity in ariport passenger screening.
The law on this is settled, and in the other direction. On multiple occasions the federal courts have upheld programs that treat groups differently when a “compelling” public interest can be identified: affirmative action, minority set-asides, composition of Congressional districts, and the all-male draft have all met that legal test. Yet the same people who would allocate jobs, federal contracts and college admissions by race or ethnicity object to using them merely as one factor in deciding whom to inconvenience for a few minutes at an airline checkpoint. Surely aviation security is a far more compelling public interest than the allocation of federal set-asides.