Nov 11, · A group suing Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has asked the court to hear the two cases together, hoping for a ruling that would apply across higher education The Case Against Affirmative Action Louis P. Pojman. In this essay I set forth nine arguments against Strong Affirmative Action, which I define as preferential treatment, discriminating in favor of members of under-represented groups, which have been treated unjustly in the past, against innocent people Oct 25, · I’m enjoying Jason L. Riley’s book Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell. In a chapter titled “Higher Education, Lower Expectations,” Riley adds to his discussion of Sowell’s critical views on affirmative action by telling of Yale law professor Stephen Carter’s experience with school officials at Harvard Law School. Carter had been rejected when he applied [ ]
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The Case Against Affirmative Action Louis P. In this essay I set forth nine arguments against Strong Affirmative Action, which I define as preferential treatment, affirmative action research paper, discriminating in favor of members of under-represented groups, which have been treated unjustly in the past, against innocent people. I distinguish this from Weak Affirmative Action, which simply seeks to promote equal opportunity to the goods and offices of a society.
I do not argue against this policy. This form of Affirmative Action, as it is applied against White males, is both racist and sexist. Hardly a week goes by but that the subject of Affirmative Action does not come up. Whether in the form of preferential hiring, non-traditional casting, affirmative action research paper, quotas, "goals and affirmative action research paper tables," minority scholarships, race-norming, affirmative action research paper, reverse discrimination, affirmative action research paper, or employment of members of underutilized groups, the issue confronts us as a terribly perplexing problem.
The Supreme Court recently refused to rule on the appeal, thus leaving it to the individual states to decide how they will deal with this issue. Both sides have reorganized for a renewed battle. Let us agree that despite the evidences of a booming economy, the poor are suffering grievously, with children being born into desperate material and psychological poverty, for affirmative action research paper the ideal of "equal affirmative action research paper for all" is a cruel joke.
Many feel that the federal government has abandoned its guarantee to provide the minimum necessities for each American, so that the pace of this tragedy that seems to be worsening affirmative action research paper. Add to this, the fact that in affirmative action research paper country African-Americans have affirmative action research paper legacy of slavery and unjust discrimination to contend with, and we have the makings of an inferno, and, perhaps, in the worse case scenario, the downfall of a nation.
What is the answer to our national problem? Is it increased welfare? more job training? more support for education? required licencing of parents to have children? negative income tax? more support for families or for mothers with affirmative action research paper children? All of these have merit and should be part of the national debate. But, my thesis is, however tragic the situation may be and we may disagree on just how tragic it isaffirmative action research paper, one policy is not affirmative action research paper legitimate part of the solution and that is reverse, unjust discrimination against young white males.
Strong Affirmative Action, which implicitly advocates reverse discrimination, while, no doubt, well intentioned, is morally heinous, asserting, by implication, that two wrongs make a right. The Two Wrongs Make a Right Thesis goes like this: Because some Whites once enslaved some Blacks, the decedents of those slaves, some of whom may now enjoy high incomes and social status, have a right to opportunities and offices over better qualified Whites affirmative action research paper had nothing to do with either slavery or the oppression of Blacks, affirmative action research paper, and who may even have suffered hardship comparable to that of poor Blacks.
In addition, Strong Affirmative Action creates a new Hierarchy of the Oppressed: Blacks get primary preferential treatment, affirmative action research paper second, Native Americans third, Hispanics fourth, Handicapped fifth, and Asians sixth and so on until White males, no matter how needy or well qualified, must accept the left-overs.
Naturally, combinations of oppressed classes e. The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment becomes reinterpreted as "Equal protection for all equals, but some equals are more equal than others. By Weak Affirmative Action I mean policies that will increase the opportunities of disadvantaged people to attain social goods and offices.
It includes the dismantling of segregated institutions, widespread advertisement to groups not previously represented in certain privileged positions, special scholarships for the disadvantaged classes e. The goal of Weak Affirmative Action is equal opportunity to compete, not equal results. We seek to provide each citizen regardless of race or gender a fair chance to the most favored positions in society.
By Affirmative action research paper Affirmative Action I mean preferential treatment on the basis of race, ethnicity or gender or some other morally irrelevant criteriondiscriminating in favor of under-represented groups against over-represented groups, aiming at roughly equal results. Strong Affirmative Action is reverse discrimination. It says it is right to do wrong to correct a wrong. It is the policy that is currently being promoted under the name of Affirmative Action, so it I will use that term or "AA" for short throughout this essay to stand for this version of affirmative action, affirmative action research paper.
I will not argue for or against the principle of Weak Affirmative Action. Affirmative action research paper, I think it has some moral weight.
Strong Affirmative Action has none, or so I will argue. In what follows I will mainly concentrate on Affirmative Action policies with regard to race, but the arguments can be extended to cover ethnicity and gender.
I think that if a case for Affirmative Action can be made it will be as a corrective to racial oppression. I will examine affirmative action research paper arguments regarding Affirmative Action. The first six will be negative, attempting to show that the best arguments for Affirmative Action fail.
The last three will be positive arguments for policies opposing Affirmative Action:. A Critique of Arguments For Affirmative Action. This argument is straightforward. We all have need of role models, and it helps to know that others like us can be successful. We learn and are encouraged to strive for excellence by emulating our heroes and "our kind of people" who have succeeded.
One of my heroes was Gandhi, an Indian Hindu, another was my grade school science teacher, affirmative action research paper, Miss DeVoe, and another Martin Luther King, behind whom I marched in Civil Rights demonstrations. Our common humanity should be a sufficient basis for us to see the possibility of success in people of virtue and merit.
To yield to the demand, however tempting it may be to do so, for "role-models-just-like-us" is to treat people like means not ends. It is to elevate morally irrelevant particularity over relevant traits, such as ability and integrity.
As Steve Allen once quipped, "If I had to follow a role model exactly, I would have become a nun, affirmative action research paper. Furthermore, even if it is of some help to people with low self-esteem to gain encouragement from seeing others of their particular kind in successful positions, it is doubtful whether this need is a sufficient reason to justify preferential affirmative action research paper or reverse discrimination.
What good is a role model who is inferior to other professors or physicians or business personnel? The best way to create role models is not to promote people because of race or gender but because they are the best qualified for the job, affirmative action research paper. It is the violation of this fact that is largely responsible for the widespread whisper in the medical field at least in New York "Never go to a Black physician under 40" referring to the fact that AA has affected the medical system during the past twenty years.
Fight the feeling how I will, I cannot help wondering on seeing a Black or woman in a position or honor, "Is she in this position because she merits it or because of Affirmative Action? Finally, entertain this thought experiment. Suppose we discovered that tall handsome white males somehow made the best role models for the most people, especially poor people. Suppose even large numbers of minority people somehow found inspiration in their sight.
Would affirmative action research paper be justified in hiring tall handsome white males over better qualified affirmative action research paper Hispanic women, who were deemed less role-model worthy? The argument goes like this: blacks have been wronged and severely harmed by whites.
Therefore white society should compensate blacks for the injury caused them. Reverse discrimination in terms of preferential hiring, contracts, affirmative action research paper, and scholarships is a fitting way to compensate for the past wrongs. This argument actually involves a distorted notion of compensation.
Normally, we think of compensation as owed by a specific person A to another person B whom A has wronged in a specific way C. For example, if I have stolen your car and used it for a period of time to make business profits that would have gone to you, it is not enough that I return your car.
I must pay you an amount reflecting your loss and my ability to pay. Sometimes compensation is extended to groups of people who have been unjustly harmed by the greater society. For example, the United States government has compensated the Japanese-Americans who were interred during the Second World War, and the West German government has paid reparations to the survivors of Nazi concentration camps. But here a specific people have been identified who were wronged in an identifiable way by the government of the nation in question.
On the face of it, demands by blacks for compensation does not fit the usual pattern. Perhaps Southern States with Jim Crow laws could be accused of unjustly harming blacks, but it is hard to see that the United States government was involved in doing so. Much of the harm done to blacks was the result of private discrimination, not state action. Furthermore, it is not clear that all blacks were harmed in the same way or whether some were unjustly harmed or harmed more than poor whites and others e.
short people. Finally, even if identifiable blacks were harmed by identifiable social practices, it is not clear that most forms of Affirmative Action are appropriate to restore the situation. The usual practice of a financial payment seems more appropriate than giving a high level job to someone unqualified or only minimally qualified, who, speculatively, might have been better qualified had he not been subject to racial discrimination.
If John is the star tailback of our college team with a promising professional future, and I accidentally but culpably drive my pick-up truck over his legs, and so cripple him, John may be due compensation, but he is not due the tailback spot on the football team. Still, there may be something intuitively compelling about compensating members of an oppressed group who are minimally qualified.
Suppose that the Hatfields and the McCoys are enemy clans and some youths from the Hatfields go over and steal diamonds and gold from the McCoys, distributing it within the Hatfield economy. Even though we do not know which Hatfield youths did the stealing, we would want to restore the wealth, as far as possible, to the McCoys.
One way might be to tax the Hatfields, but another might be to give preferential treatment in terms of scholarships and training programs and hiring to the McCoys. This is perhaps the strongest argument for Affirmative Action, and it may well justify some weaker versions of AA, but it is doubtful whether it is sufficient to justify strong versions with quotas and goals and time tables in skilled positions.
There are at least two reasons for this. First, we have no way of knowing how many people of any given group would have achieved some given level of competence had the world been different, affirmative action research paper.
This is especially relevant if my objections to the Equal Results Argument 3 above are correct. Secondly, the normal criterion of competence is a strong prima facie consideration when the most important positions are at stake. There are three reasons for this: 1 treating people according to their merits respects them as persons, as ends in themselves, rather than as means to social ends if we believe that individuals possess a dignity which deserves to be respected, then we ought to treat that individual on the basis of his or her merits, not as a mere instrument for social policy ; 2 society has given people expectations that if they attain certain levels of excellence they will be awarded appropriately and 3 filling the most important positions with the affirmative action research paper qualified is the best way to insure efficiency in job-related areas and in society in general.
These reasons are not absolutes. They can be overridden. At this point we get into the problem of whether innocent non-blacks should have to pay a penalty in terms of preferential hiring of blacks. We turn to that argument. The Argument for Compensation from Those who Innocently Benefitted from Past Injustice Young White males as innocent beneficiaries of unjust discrimination of blacks and women have no grounds for complaint when society seeks to level the tilted field.
They may be innocent of oppressing blacks, other minorities, and women, but they have unjustly benefitted from that oppression or discrimination. So it is perfectly proper that less qualified women and blacks be hired before them.
The operative principle is: He who knowingly and willingly benefits from a wrong must help pay for the wrong. Judith Jarvis Thomson puts it this way. and even those who did not directly benefit had, at any rate, the advantage in the competition which comes of the confidence in one's full membership [in the community], and of one's right being recognized as a matter of course.
Does Affirmative Action Hurt Asian Americans?
, time: 5:59Affirmative action in the United States - Wikipedia
Nov 11, · A group suing Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has asked the court to hear the two cases together, hoping for a ruling that would apply across higher education A study by UC Berkeley Center Studies in Higher Education researcher Zachary Bleemer on the impact of California's ban on affirmative action on student outcomes using a difference-in-difference research design and a newly constructed longitudinal database linking all – University of California applicants to their college We prepared the list of constitutional law research paper topics. You are welcome — just use it. This list of topics for a constitutional law research paper will help you to find the right idea for your paper. And choosing the right idea is the most important part of writing a good essay and getting an «A»
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