Affirmative or Negative Action
Anyone want to talk
affirmative action?
I recently read an article where a black, female astrophysicist responds to a couple of Justice Roberts' questions: “What unique perspective does a minority student bring to a physics class?” and “I’m just wondering what the benefits of diversity are in that situation?” She more or less replies that minorities shouldn't have to justify their place in a physics classroom. I haven't paid close attention to the oral arguments (other than the buzz about Scalia's comments, I'll get to that later), but I couldn't help but wonder as I read the article if the debate over affirmative action has really gone this far afield.
To me the point of affirmative action is to attempt to level the playing field for those groups who have faced generations of discrimination. Whether or not it effectively addresses the issue without creating other problems are important debates to have, but if the argument is now whether or not diversity should be mandated for diversity's sake I think that both sides are missing the mark. The astrophysicist basically argues that minorities should be allowed to study physics and doesn't even address the issue of preferential admissions. Roberts' comments do seem to address the issue of preferential admissions, but on the grounds of how diversity would benefit the classroom. To me crux of the question is about equality of opportunities, not about the classroom experience.
To get things back on track, here's what I see as the salient issues (obviously a simplification of a complex issue):
Aff
- Historically oppressed minorities are much more likely
to grow up in poverty and to face greater difficulties to getting into
college.
- There is a correlation between education and higher
paying jobs, so making it easier for minorities to have access to higher
education can help lift individuals, families, and eventually communities
out of poverty.
Neg
- True equality means being color blind. Passing
over a more qualified candidate because they are not a minority does
damage and is an injustice to that individual.
- By letting a less qualified candidate have preferred
admission status, some will be placed in a situation for which they are
not prepared and more harm than good will result.
I think that A1 is
pretty irrefutable as well as the first half of A2. Whether or not
affirmative action is effective in raising families and communities out of
poverty I don't know. I'm sure there is anecdotal evidence aplenty of
this, but I don't know if there are significant trends in the data (I didn't
take any time to look).
My problem with N1 is
that admissions (or job hiring) without affirmative action are far from color
blind. Legacies are certainly ridiculous, but they probably account for a
pretty small percentage of college students. What is more of an obstacle
is tacit stereotyping, which is very well documented. Some efforts can be
made to strip an application of identifying information, but it's pretty hard
to remove all context clues without removing all context for admission.
Going back to A1, I write
a number of letters of recommendation each year for some astoundingly qualified
college candidates. A resume of one such student (which is fairly
typical) included:
- Chinese Immersion Study Scholarship in Shanghai
- Humanities Entrepreneurship & Technology
Institute Summer Program at Stanford University
- Adventures of the Mind Leadership Camp Occidental
College
- Immersion Spanish Class Cusco, Peru
- Digital Media Academy Advanced Programming with
Java and Arduino Robotics
- Violinist Reno Philharmonic Youth Symphony Orchestra
- Skiing, Mountain Biking, Swimming, Ice Climbing,
Traveling, Reading
And that's less than
half of the resume. Sometimes when I read these I think about how these
kids have done more in the first 18 years of their lives than I will ever do.
But then I also think how this is a very clear picture of a life
of privilege. Could an inner-city kid have any way of competing with
a resume like that? No combination of smarts and hard work would get them
anywhere close.
I believe that N2 is an
objection worth investigating, and that it is more or less the argument that
Justice Scalia wanted to bring up when he said, "There are those who
contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University
of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a
less-advanced school, a less -- a slower-track school where they do well."
Where I feel he shot himself in the foot with this statement was by
saying "African-Americans" rather than something like
"less-qualified applicants." By using the former term he sounds
like he's calling all African-Americans unqualified to attend the University of
Texas. Aren't lawyers supposed to choose their words carefully?
While I would do a lot
more research if I were actually voting on the matter, having to choose right
now for or against the implementation of affirmative action, I would vote in
the affirmative.
Comments
I would like to for someone to explain what is so upsetting about Justice Scalia's question, because frankly I don't get the outrage. The mismatch theory has a serious intellectual pedigree and has not been definitively refuted in the minds of many. It was raised in the amicus briefs, so I don't understand why it should be off limits.
I don't think your criticism of Scalia using "African American" instead of "less qualified" applicants is quit right. The issue in Fisher is whether UT's preferential treatment of Black students in admissions is unconstitutional, since the constitution has been interpreted as prohibiting racial discrimination unless the particular law is narrowly tailored to further a compelling state interest. UT considers race in its admissions, and favors black applicants in particular. I think Scalia's properly frames the question in terms of "African American students" since that is both what is happening in the particular case, and also what is relevant to the law.
While most racial discrimination is considered “bad”, this particular form of discrimination is justified because it is designed to help minorities. The theory is, it's good to discriminate based on race, provided its discriminating in favor of minorities that the government used to discriminate against. The unspoken corollary is that it is also okay for the government to discriminate against those races that it used to discriminate in favor of. Any honest conversation about racial discrimination needs to be honest about that point. Discrimination is a zero sum game, and by helping one person by discriminating in their favor, you necessarily hurt another person you are discriminating against.
Of course, it’s also an open question whether this particular form of discrimination helps minorities. It pretty clearly hurts Asians, who excel at academics, but who are held back by racial preferences. It may also hurt blacks and Hispanics by throwing them in the deep end and telling them to swim.
A few points about this. First, affirmative action doesn’t care about all groups that have been discriminated against for generations. It pretty much only cares about racial groups. It doesn’t care about religious groups, for example. It doesn’t really care about gender. It doesn’t care about Irish or Italian heritage (unless your contention is they don't count because they weren’t discriminated against for generations). It is pretty much only race that matters.
Second, this type of racial discrimination doesn’t even care about all racial groups that have been discriminated against for generations. Jews have faced generations of discrimination but have no special legal preferences. Same goes for Asians, who, again, are hurt by affirmative action. It is only certain discriminated against racial groups who are benefited by affirmative action.
Third, this type of racial discrimination doesn’t actually care whether the particular person benefiting from the racial discrimination is, in fact, disadvantaged because of historic discrimination. It doesn’t care whether the person benefited is a descended from a slave or just got of a plane from an African country that is 99% black. It doesn’t care whether the beneficiary is a poor kid from Baltimore or the child of a middle class black professionals living in the suburbs of Houston. All it cares about is skin color.
I agree with that. We shouldn't judge people base on their skin color. Affirmative action, of course, does the exact opposite. It treats people as members of a racial group. It judges People based on skin color, ignoring everything else about them that makes them an individual. It's the opposite of what King argued for.
"I think Scalia's properly frames the question in terms of "African American students" since that is both what is happening in the particular case, and also what is relevant to the law."
I agree that having the context helps. Personally I knew nothing about the case other than that it was addressing the constitutionality of affirmative action. But I still see it as a poor choice of words. "...it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well..." Are we to believe that no African-Americans do well at the University of Texas? How about something more nuanced like, "where they might not do well."
As I've argue above, I don't actually believe that's true. Mormons, Jews, Asians, and other minorities, like Indians do not grow up in poverty despite historic discrimination. Second generation immigrants from otherwise historically discriminated against groups do very well in the US. Women do well in today's economy. Certain minorities, like blacks and Hispanics, do have lower standards of living, but I don't think that proves a general correlation between historic discrimination and poverty.
But lets suppose there is a correlation, that still leaves the question of whether historic discrimination is causing the poverty. The evidence for this is thin. It is well established that the quickest road to poverty in the US is becoming a single mother, whether you are black, white or other. However this is a particularly big problem for Blacks, because 70% of black children are born to single mothers. So if you are going to argue that historic discrimination/slavery is causing black poverty today, you also have to explain why historic discrimination/slavery is causing 70% of Black children to be born out of wedlock. And if this really is the result of slavery and discrimination, you have to explain why the Black family remained in tack for decades after the end of slavery, only to fall apart starting in 60s at the very time when Blacks were making progress with their civil rights.
This is an interesting argument. It certainly fits the dictionary definition of discrimination. But I believe the more common societal interpretation of the phrase racial discrimination includes prejudicial injustice toward a minority race.
"Discrimination is a zero sum game, and by helping one person by discriminating in their favor, you necessarily hurt another person you are discriminating against."
I think that depends on how you're doing the summing. Yes, for every one person helped there is one person hindered, but the degrees of the helping and hindering are not obviously of equal magnitudes. It's possible that the minority's opportunity to go to college is a large boon in their life while the non-minority's failure to be accepted has minimal repercussions. I'm not saying that's necessarily so, but it's a possibility.
How can one call it a "fair shot" to compare in a vacuum the resumes of students who had vastly different support/obstacles growing up?
"There are -- there are those who contend that it does not benefit AfricanAmericans to to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less advanced school, a less a slowertrack school where they do well. One of one of the briefs pointed out that--that most of the most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas."
Additionally, its a factual question whether Blacks do no do well at UT, and perhaps there was something in the brief indicating that they are not doing well at UT. I don't know what the statistics are at UT, but I know at most law schools, for example, blacks are grouped in the bottom 25% of the class.
I do find this argument persuasive. I would definitely prefer that preferential treatment be focused on those who actually need it. And historical discrimination does seem a much less effective indicator of those who need help than identifying those who are currently fighting an uphill battle.
I guess looking for those who check the minority race box is easier than looking for those that check the low income, one or zero parent, inner-city, etc. boxes.
As I've already conceded, maybe historic discrimination is not the best rationale for affirmative action. But what about using it as a tool for helping populations that are currently struggling regardless of the historical reasons? Wouldn't the black community (with 70% of their children being born out of wedlock) be a pretty good candidate for help? Sure you'd also be helping some privileged black students, but that would probably be a pretty small percentage.
This brings up another tricky issue: how do you accurately/appropriately measure the effectiveness of affirmative action? To me the answer to this question is subject to all of the difficulties of measuring the effectiveness of education in general.
Are there data on how those who benefited from affirmative action perform 15 or 20 years into their careers? That would seem a lot more telling than where they placed in their class or even how they performed on bar or board exams.
If you're point is the game is life, and life is not fair, I conceded! But it's not fair on many, many dimensions that have nothing to do with race. What about other factors we aren't adjusting for? Intelligence? Athleticism? Attractiveness? Money? Gender? Religion? Social Skills? Humor? Mental health? Race isn't not even close to perfectly correlated with everything that is important to level playing field for life. Why would we make race the touchstone for trying to make life fair?
"It's possible that the minority's opportunity to go to college is a large boon in their life while the non-minority's failure to be accepted has minimal repercussions. I'm not saying that's necessarily so, but it's a possibility."
It could be the case, but why would it? Also it seems contrary to affirmative action theory. One of the premises of affirmative action appears to be that simply getting into the school is what matters to put blacks on the path to success. But if person A is put on the path to success, then person B is bumped from that path. if person B find another path to success, well so may have person A. I can't see any reason for believing that in the aggregate this doesn't create zero sum game--except if the mismatch theory is correct, in which case it is a negative sum game. Zero sum seems to be the best theoretically possible outcome. Or at least, I don't see a theory for a positive sum outcome.
This article says Black who receive preferential treatment are 10 times more likely to flunk the bar.
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/26/opinion/oe-sander26
I've heard Thomas Sowell make the point that affirmative action does not benefit inner-city blacks, but mostly upper and middle class blacks. This article confirms the point:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/07/how-affirmative-action-became-an-upper-middle-class-benefit.html