NationStates Jolt Archive

I've repeatedly seen posts (usually totally unrelated to the threads) that complain about affirmative action saying it is racist and promotes less qualified minorities over more qualified white males.

This is simply wrong.

Anyway, I'd like to start with a few statements -- largely related to what is "affirmative action."

1. The umbrella term "affirmative action" refers to a broad array of gender, race, national origin, ethnicity or color-conscious programs (what I will call "gender- and race-conscious"). It includes outreach programs, targeted at specific groups, to notify them of education, employment and contracting opportunities. And it includes programs that favor -- among similar candidates, all of whom are otherwise qualified--members of historically subordinated and still underrepresented groups.

Affirmative action is not discrimination. The problem with this myth is that it uses the same word -- discrimination -- to describe two very different things. Job discrimination is grounded in prejudice and exclusion, whereas affirmative action is an effort to overcome prejudicial treatment through inclusion. The most effective way to cure society of exclusionary practices is to make special efforts at inclusion, which is exactly what affirmative action does. The logic of affirmative action is no different than the logic of treating a nutritional deficiency with vitamin supplements. For a healthy person, high doses of vitamin supplements may be unnecessary or even harmful, but for a person whose system is out of balance, supplements are an efficient way to restore the body's balance.

2. People can, in good faith, worry about the times affirmative action operates in the wrong way. In the name of affirmative action, for example, some employers have used illegal quotas and have hired unqualified people. They have done it; they were wrong to do it; and I will not defend them or their programs. But every serious study concludes these abuses of affirmative action are exceptions -- indeed, exceptions more prevalent in the very early years of affirmative action than in today's world.

3. People may well have other concerns or objections to affirmative action. But at least they should accurately describe the affirmative action programs I am defending (and they should insist others do the same). Here again is what those programs do: In an effort to make available opportunities for those groups still not much represented because of historical and contemporary discrimination, in an effort to draw upon diverse skills and sensibilities, affirmative action takes gender and race into account in deciding which otherwise qualified candidates deserve a chance at education, employment, or government work.

4. But let me be more explicit. Affirmative action programs should not impose -- and the programs I defend do not impose -- criteria that substitute a search for gender and race in place of a search for qualified candidates. Merit doesn't just matter as a part of affirmative action programs. Merit is and should be at the heart of every defensible outreach, educational, employment and contracting program. Because merit matters, it is wrong if an unqualified person gets a job, a scholarship, or a government contract over a qualified person. It is wrong if an unqualified white man gets a job over a qualified woman or minority. And it's every bit as wrong if an unqualified American Indian, Latino, African American, Asian Pacific American or woman gets a job, a scholarship, or a government contract over a qualified white man.

5. It is not presumptively wrong, however, to award a qualified woman, Asian Pacific American, African American, American Indian, or Latino a job, a scholarship, or a government contract over other qualified candidates (perhaps white men, perhaps other women or people of color), even those with, say, more experience, or better standardized test scores. Merit rarely means -- and rarely should mean – automatically concluding that the person with the highest test score or the most years experience is demonstrably the best candidate. No single test or predictor reveals everything (or often very much about what) we might want or need to know about a candidate, and even the best tests and predictors are imperfect. Institutions regularly find themselves, in applying even the most trustworthy predictors, making carefully considered but necessarily tentative distinctions between qualified candidates. Done well, that is not violating merit or thwarting merit. That is taking merit seriously -- fully aware of its promise and limits.

6. Affirmative action traces its moral roots to several related goals: (1) fighting discrimination, (2) compensating for past injuries, (3) striving for a fair distribution of opportunities and responsibilities, (4) seeking social well-being, and (5) promoting diversity.

7. We should keep the grounds we are debating clear. If you wish to disagree with my definition of affirmative action, that is fine. But you wish to insist affirmative action as it exists is something different, you should be clear exactly to what you are referring and be prepared to defend your definition. I believe my statements are consistent with affirmative action law and general practices. If you wish to provide an alternate theoretical definition, you should be clear what your definition is and why it is relevant.

Also, there are distinctions between public and private affirmative action programs, programs that are court-ordered as a remedy for discrimination, etc. Affirmative action arises in a number of situations, but is most often discussed in terms of education or employment. If you are going to make an argument based on a specific context, you need to be clear. Specificity is your friend.

What he said!!


Great post.

One thing I've always wondered about is this:

If you have a company, and let's say you have 1000 employees, and you end up hiring less than a certain percentage of minorities, let's say less than 18 percent African-Americans, a plaintiff's lawyer shows up at your office and says that unless you settle out of court, he's going to have 50 people in court to say that you don't hire enough African-Americans.

It's the exact scenario you say you won't defend - quotas of unqualified people.

These lawsuits are a dime a dozen around here. Most of the time, the company settles out of court, because it's cheaper than bothering to go to court.

Nice way to make a living if you're a lawyer with no sense of ethics. And the laws and climate of affirmative action make this possible.

One thing I've always wondered about is this:

If you have a company, and let's say you have 1000 employees, and you end up hiring less than a certain percentage of minorities, let's say less than 18 percent African-Americans, a plaintiff's lawyer shows up at your office and says that unless you settle out of court, he's going to have 50 people in court to say that you don't hire enough African-Americans.

It's the exact scenario you say you won't defend - quotas of unqualified people.

These lawsuits are a dime a dozen around here. Most of the time, the company settles out of court, because it's cheaper than bothering to go to court.

Nice way to make a living if you're a lawyer with no sense of ethics. And the laws and climate of affirmative action make this possible.
So companies are culpable for ambulance chasing lawyers having no sense of ethics, rather than not hiring a few ethnic shitworkers/office juniors to prevent the situation arising?

One thing I've always wondered about is this:

If you have a company, and let's say you have 1000 employees, and you end up hiring less than a certain percentage of minorities, let's say less than 18 percent African-Americans, a plaintiff's lawyer shows up at your office and says that unless you settle out of court, he's going to have 50 people in court to say that you don't hire enough African-Americans.

It's the exact scenario you say you won't defend - quotas of unqualified people.

These lawsuits are a dime a dozen around here. Most of the time, the company settles out of court, because it's cheaper than bothering to go to court.

Nice way to make a living if you're a lawyer with no sense of ethics. And the laws and climate of affirmative action make this possible.

You are one of the few opponents of affirmative action with at least some clue as to what it is. You know full well that quotas are illegal.

Your scenario, however, is bullshit. The Supreme Court has said you can't rely on numerical quotas for a discrimination lawsuit. No company with a decent lawyer should settle such a case.

Your scenario also presupposes an employer that may well be discriminating in its hiring practices. Assuming 18% is far less than the percentage of qualified African-Americans in the employment pool, why is the employer's hiring so skewed? (If it isn't statistically skewed, the premise of your scenario isn't satisfied.)

Why would it be cheaper to settle with an baseless lawsuit than to defend against it and/or hire in a non-discriminatory fashion?

Regardless, affirmative action has nothing to do with the scenario you describe. You don't link the two in any way.

You are one of the few opponents of affirmative action with at least some clue as to what it is.

Your scenario, however, is bullshit. The Supreme Court has said you can't rely on numerical quotas for a discrimination lawsuit. No company with a decent lawyer should settle such a case.

Regardless, affirmative action has nothing to do with the scenario you describe. You don't link the two in any way.

Supreme Court decisions notwithstanding, I've had three of these last year alone.

Judges around here are largely Democratic appointees, and none of them will dismiss the case. The whole thing drags on until the discovery period is over, by which time you've spent a LOT of money on the idiocy.

By the time you re-educate the judge and get the thing dismissed, you've spent more than you would have settled for.

It's a shakedown, more or less.

Supreme Court decisions notwithstanding, I've had three of these last year alone.

Judges around here are largely Democratic appointees, and none of them will dismiss the case. The whole thing drags on until the discovery period is over, by which time you've spent a LOT of money on the idiocy.

By the time you re-educate the judge and get the thing dismissed, you've spent more than you would have settled for.

It's a shakedown, more or less.

1. So your argument isn't bad law, but bad judges and lawyers.

2. This relates to affirmative action how?

Affirmative action is not discrimination.

Any choice is discrimination. The choice between Coke and Pepsi involves discrimination, usually in terms of preferred taste, and price.

whereas affirmative action is an effort to overcome prejudicial treatment through inclusion

Nonsense. Affirmative action does nothing of the sort, it merely creates more prejudice. With affirmative action, people will tend to suspect that each member of the group(s) favoured by affirmative action are not fully-qualified, and are merely there because of affirmative action.

Like most government programs, affirmative action does the opposite of what it intends.

Regarding discrimination and employment. We must distinguish between two types of discrimination, and two types of employment.

The two types of employment are government jobs, and productive jobs.

The two types of discrimination are relevant discrimination (things essential to the job in question, taking an IT job as an example, discriminating between different people because of their individual sets of skills in the IT field), and irrelevant discrimination (in the same job, gender or race)

In the public sector, we can insiston relevant discrimination only, as this ensures that the money taken from the taxpayers of not wasted on idiots.

In the private sector, a person has only got the right to control that he owns. I won't impose my views on others, and those who do are fascist boners who possess a degree of intellectual sloth, and cowardice as to render them a waste of matter that could have been better used as manure.

Those who practice irrelevant discrimination in terms of purchasing goods and services will be punished by the fact that by practicing irrlevant discrimination that must be getting something worse that they would have got by not practicing it. This is especially true in employment.

If people want to waste their money by practicing irrelevant discrimination, fine, provided it isn't my money.

Affirmative action is patronising, wasteful, intrusive, and always promotes what it seeks to destroy.

welcome to a nation where everyone stands on their own merits, no slaves and no royalty, but some people will be propped up taller than you regardless of merit...

if a company switches to internet based hiring to avoid even the slightest appearance of discrimination and hires via resume and email interview they have done well, treating everyone equally.

but wait - some are more equal, and if through your blind process of selecting the most capable applicants you did not hire the minimum percentage of people with certain characteristics out of anyone's control, irrelevant to the task, and which you specifically avoiding taking into consideration because that would be discrimination, if they are able or not, you will pay out your ass.

the american dream has been paid for in lives prior to your own, hold it dear, and work hard in this land of opportunity where all men are created equal... unless your parents were of certain ethnic backgrounds, in which case you can help me fill my quota to avoid be butt-raped by a gang of lawyers.

In the UK, we call this positive discrimination. What is wrong in this instance is to give someone a position on the basis of the fact that they are a member of a supressed group. Not on the basis of their experiance or qualifications. While it is true that experiance and qualifications are not the only mesaurements nessecary, it is also true that you need to have a valid obesevable reason as to why you hire one person over another. And that reason cannot be that they belong to a minority.

Any choice is discrimination. The choice between Coke and Pepsi involves discrimination, usually in terms of preferred taste, and price.



Nonsense. Affirmative action does nothing of the sort, it merely creates more prejudice. With affirmative action, people will tend to suspect that each member of the group(s) favoured by affirmative action are not fully-qualified, and are merely there because of affirmative action.

Like most government programs, affirmative action does the opposite of what it intends.

Regarding discrimination and employment. We must distinguish between two types of discrimination, and two types of employment.

The two types of employment are government jobs, and productive jobs.

The two types of discrimination are relevant discrimination (things essential to the job in question, taking an IT job as an example, discriminating between different people because of their individual sets of skills in the IT field), and irrelevant discrimination (in the same job, gender or race)

In the public sector, we can insiston relevant discrimination only, as this ensures that the money taken from the taxpayers of not wasted on idiots.

In the private sector, a person has only got the right to control that he owns. I won't impose my views on others, and those who do are fascist boners who possess a degree of intellectual sloth, and cowardice as to render them a waste of matter that could have been better used as manure.

Those who practice irrelevant discrimination in terms of purchasing goods and services will be punished by the fact that by practicing irrlevant discrimination that must be getting something worse that they would have got by not practicing it. This is especially true in employment.

If people want to waste their money by practicing irrelevant discrimination, fine, provided it isn't my money.

Affirmative action is patronising, wasteful, intrusive, and always promotes what it seeks to destroy.

Okay, how about you try that again, except this time you actually absorb and write a response to what Cat-Tribes actually said?

Thank you.

How you ever graduated from junior-high with that reading comprehension, I have no idea. Your teachers should be fired.


Like most government programs, affirmative action does the opposite of what it intends.

And by this quote, am I to assume that you favor the disbanding of the U.S. Armed Forces? Obviously, since it's a government program designed to keep us safe and protect our interests, it must be doing just the opposite, right?

welcome to a nation where everyone stands on their own merits, no slaves and no royalty, but some people will be propped up taller than you regardless of merit...

if a company switches to internet based hiring to avoid even the slightest appearance of discrimination and hires via resume and email interview they have done well, treating everyone equally.

but wait - some are more equal, and if through your blind process of selecting the most capable applicants you did not hire the minimum percentage of people with certain characteristics out of anyone's control, irrelevant to the task, and which you specifically avoiding taking into consideration because that would be discrimination, if they are able or not, you will pay out your ass.

the american dream has been paid for in lives prior to your own, hold it dear, and work hard in this land of opportunity where all men are created equal... unless your parents were of certain ethnic backgrounds, in which case you can help me fill my quota to avoid be butt-raped by a gang of lawyers.

If you think the white man is discriminated against in this nation, you haven't looked closely at who runs our courts, our corporations, legislature and who every single one of our Presidents are. Boo-frickin hoo. The fact is that EVEN WITH affirmative action, the white man (and I am one,) still wields inordinate wealth, influence and power in this country.

So excuse me if I don't weep for you.

It's funny, but the Republicans and Conservatives (okay, some of them...but it's a rampantly common meme,) bitch bitch and bitch, saying "Oh, but liberals have no ideas. All they do it criticize!"

Well, tell me this: Since we know, from fairly empirical means, that minorities ARE discriminated against, they DO recieve less pay for the same work and the ARE under-represented in government, how do we fix this state of affairs, other than by affirmative action? Hmmmmmm? Shall we ignore it? Yeah, that'll make it go away. Anyone can do anything if they just put their mind to it, right? A sprinter carrying a 40 lb backpack can win a race if he just tries hard enough, right?

Affirmative action (as are all actions began by man,) is imperfect, but it does indeed help. If you want a better solution, be original and think of one.

Okay, how about you try that again, except this time you actually absorb and write a response to what Cat-Tribes actually said?

Thank you.

How you ever graduated from junior-high with that reading comprehension, I have no idea. Your teachers should be fired.

Translation: "I can't come up with a cogent argument against anything you write, but since I am a leftiod racist, I'll post bile."

Honestly, if you can't address anything, don't hit "reply". What really amazes me is that people like you actually think their views should be addressed.

If you think the white man is discriminated against in this nation, you haven't looked closely at who runs our courts, our corporations, legislature and who every single one of our Presidents are. Boo-frickin hoo. The fact is that EVEN WITH affirmative action, the white man (and I am one,) still wields inordinate wealth, influence and power in this country.

Racist horseshit. Grow up, you little shit.

Translation: "I can't come up with a cogent argument against anything you write, but since I am a leftiod racist, I'll post bile."

Honestly, if you can't address anything, don't hit "reply". What really amazes me is that people like you actually think their views should be addressed.

Why should I address specifics? You failed utterly to do so in your post. You just took longer to do it.

Racist horseshit. Grow up, you little shit.

Really? We've had a black or latino President while my back was turned?

Considering you used the word "shit" twice in a group of seven words, I don't think I'm the one that needs to grow up.

Tell you what. I'll address the specifics of your original post when you address the specifics of Cat-Tribes' post. Then we can both behave live civilized adults.

It's funny, but the Republicans and Conservatives (okay, some of them...but it's a rampantly common meme,) bitch bitch and bitch, saying "Oh, but liberals have no ideas. All they do it criticize!"

Well, tell me this: Since we know, from fairly empirical means, that minorities ARE discriminated against, they DO recieve less pay for the same work and the ARE under-represented in government, how do we fix this state of affairs, other than by affirmative action? Hmmmmmm? Shall we ignore it? Yeah, that'll make it go away. Anyone can do anything if they just put their mind to it, right? A sprinter carrying a 40 lb backpack can win a race if he just tries hard enough, right?

Affirmative action (as are all actions began by man,) is imperfect, but it does indeed help. If you want a better solution, be original and think of one.

Zero out of three. A bunch of non-arguments to justify a non-solution to a non-problem.

Firstly, "underrepresentation" is not a problem in itself, and no one has shown any evidence that it does constitute a problem, or that it leads to problems.

If an actual case of the government discriminating against someone on specific, irrelevant grounds, then action needs to be related to the specific problem. If it takes the form of a government official practicing the discrimination himself (a DMV offiicial unilaterally refuses to pass blacks on a driving test that they should have rightfully passed), then the official needs to be punished, and other personnel made aware that such conduct cannot be tolerated. If it is specific policy, or legislation, then it needs to be overturned by the consititutional means available.

If we are talking about private sector discrimination, then it is no concern of anyone is a shopkeeper refuses to servew gays, or an employer refuses to take on hispanics. If someone wants to deny himself customers, or deny his company good employees, then that merely creates opportunities for others. In any case, one cannot rectify this without effectively stealing the property of the person in question.

In other words, private sector affirmative action amounts to the government saying "if you hold unfashionable attitudes, your property will be stolen".

Call me strange, but that sounds more like National Socialist Germany, or the USSR, than the USA.

Having established that no problem exists, let us look at your solution. Affirmative action. giving preferences to groups that have good lobbyists in DC. How will people react to this? Simple, they will regard any member of these groups who is a co-worker as being probably unsound for the job. Your solution engenders mistrust, and more racism/sexism/"whatever the heck it is" ism. As with most government programs, the "solution" only creates more of a problem.

Without affirmative action, a minority in a workplace can only be assumed as someone who is sound for the job, getting through a process of evaluation and competition the same as everyone else. Exactly why this would lead to more prejudice, and discrimination is something no one has ever answered.

As for your arguments, resorting to ridicule only shows the weakness of them.

I do have a better solution, a better policy for governments: do nothing whatsoever.

The government should hand out contracts based solely on the quality of the bid compared with the others in terms of price, and goods and services offered. The government should hire people based solely on their qualifications, and experiences.

As for the private sector: hands off completely. To do anything else is to cement the attitude that the government can and should steal the property of anyone with "undesirable" attitudes.

If people want to name and shame firms that have these undesirable attitudes, fine, let them. Articles, books, broadcasts, letters, websites, interviews, posters, you name it. Change the defamation laws to ensure that truth is a defence.

I'm not sure if things have changed over the past few years, but it use to be that Equal Employment Opportunity Commission representatives would hold a company's feet to the fire when they could prove that protected minorities were underrepresented in any of the standard categories of positions: Executive, Other Exempt ( from the Wage and Hour provisions ), Non-Exempt, and Hourly ( the members of which are also technically included in the Non-Exempt category ).

Underrepresentation was defacto when the percentage of any protected group within a particular category of positions was less that of comparable positions withing the SMSA ( Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area ).

Such was the pressure to match internal statistics to those of the SMSA that quotas were the defacto result, although the EEOC never called them that, and the company was never allowed to call them that.

Here's an example of actually respopnding to the content of someone's post"

Any choice is discrimination. The choice between Coke and Pepsi involves discrimination, usually in terms of preferred taste, and price.

Actually, it depends on which definition of "discrimination" you use.

1 a : the act of discriminating b : the process by which two stimuli differing in some aspect are responded to differently
2 : the quality or power of finely distinguishing
3 a : the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually b : prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment <racial discrimination>

Considering the context of the original post, meaning 3 was intended. You inserted meaning 1.

Nonsense. Affirmative action does nothing of the sort, it merely creates more prejudice. With affirmative action, people will tend to suspect that each member of the group(s) favoured by affirmative action are not fully-qualified, and are merely there because of affirmative action.

Whereas the status quo of minorities being paid less for the same work, generally having a higher ceiling in corporate and government jobs causes minorities to suspect that each member of the group favored by the status quo are not fully qualified and are merely there because of "connections," predjudices, and beiong related to someone important.

Like most government programs, affirmative action does the opposite of what it intends.

So, the Army makes us less safe? Or do you get to pick and choose? What criteria do you use to make your choice as to which government programs work or not?

Regarding discrimination and employment. We must distinguish between two types of discrimination, and two types of employment.

The two types of employment are government jobs, and productive jobs.

The two types of discrimination are relevant discrimination (things essential to the job in question, taking an IT job as an example, discriminating between different people because of their individual sets of skills in the IT field), and irrelevant discrimination (in the same job, gender or race.)

In the public sector, we can insist on relevant discrimination only, as this ensures that the money taken from the taxpayers of not wasted on idiots.

In the private sector, a person has only got the right to control that he owns. I won't impose my views on others, and those who do are fascist boners who possess a degree of intellectual sloth, and cowardice as to render them a waste of matter that could have been better used as manure.

Those who practice irrelevant discrimination in terms of purchasing goods and services will be punished by the fact that by practicing irrlevant discrimination that must be getting something worse that they would have got by not practicing it. This is especially true in employment.

This ignores the fact that discriminatory practices do happen in the real world, and it doesn't impinge, gewnerally, on the economic success of those practicing it, since they are buoyed upwards by others who also practice it. You assume that the average consumer will be familiar with the hiring and payscale practices of the business they make a purchase from.


If people want to waste their money by practicing irrelevant discrimination, fine, provided it isn't my money.

Affirmative action is patronising, wasteful, intrusive, and always promotes what it seeks to destroy.

The status quo is patronising, wasteful, and intrusive as well. Take a tour around an inner city some time. Walk around Congress as well. You make the call.

Unlike you, I'm not going to make a sweeping and utterly illogical statement like "the status quo always promotes what it seeks to destroy." But I will say that the status quo could use a bit of improvement.

*snipped openning post for length*
You make some very good points, and it is true that there are many misconceptions about affirmitive action. However, none of what you say changes my opposition to programs that regard an individual's race, gender, or sexual orientation as a qualification when, in fact, those qualities have no bearing on the individual's ability to perform the given tasks.

I am personally and deeply insulted by the notion that my femaleness should be regarded as a qualification of any kind, when my femaleness actually has no bearing whatsoever on my ability to perform in my field. Furthermore, the notion that I can be some kind of representative for "femaleness" assumes that I have something in common with all other womb-possessing humans. I find this idea repulsive, since it persists in the illusions of "us" versus "them"; according to this model, female humans are part of one group, male humans another group, and we must allow representatives from each group. This is pure crap, of course, and the only way real equality will ever be acheived is for people to realize that male and female humans are the same goddam group.

The notion that my presence contributes to "diversity" simply because I was born female is disgusting to me as well. I contribute to diversity because I am an individual, not because I was born with two X chromosomes. I would contribute just as much (or as little) to the diversity of an organization if I had been born male. I would contribute just as much (or as little) if I were black, or Jewish, or redheaded, or brown-eyed, or anything else. My contributions should be judged based on my INDIVIDUAL characteristics, not based on my supposed membership in some arbitrarily outlined "minority" group.

Why should I address specifics? You failed utterly to do so in your post. You just took longer to do it.



Really? We've had a black or latino President while my back was turned?

Considering you used the word "shit" twice in a group of seven words, I don't think I'm the one that needs to grow up.

Tell you what. I'll address the specifics of your original post when you address the specifics of Cat-Tribes' post. Then we can both behave live civilized adults.

If you don't like being insulted, don't insult people. You opened the door, don't complain when it hits you in the butt.

As for whether black and latino presidents, the very fact that you brought that up merely demonstrates your racism. The fact that you think that not having presidents of a particular race is a bad thing is racist. You are judging people by their race. A US President should be judged by his actions in office, or his inactions in office, not his race. You cannot prove to me that a black or hispanic President would be a better President than a white, or a Martian. It is simply impossible to prove because race has nothing to do with the Presidency.

I find it amusing that people who claim to be against racial discrimination are obsessed with counting people by race.

You have shown yourself incapable of behaving like a civilised adult. You will not be treated as one.

As to the specifics in Cat-Tribes' post, there are none. Merely the standard, already refuted defences to a failed program.

Neither you nor Cat-Tribes have offered conclusive proof that general discrimination occurs today, nor have you successfully made the argument that specific individual cases need to be dealt with through general policy.

If you want a point by point refutation, here it is:

(Cat Tribes' points will be taken in the order he numbered them)

1) Affirmative action is discrimination for the simple reason that all choices are discrimination. For example, I use a Intel Celeron. There are a number of discriminations that I made, between types of computer, brands of CPU, between Intel products. I discriminated on the grounds of cost, and relability.

Affirmative action is racial, and/or sexual discrimination because it introduces the making of choices in terms of race and sex (or whatever else is targettted for affirmative action)

Secondly, Cat Tribes' mentions, as you do, that "underrepresentation" is a problem. This is the most glaring weakness in your arguments because no one has ever established that it is a problem.

2) An empirical argument with no supporting evidence presented whatsoever. Not worth addressing.

3) Ad-hominem. He has not established that affirmative action is in fact being misrepresented.

4) If he is prizing merit above all else, then he has contradicted everything else.

5) Contradicts 4, and gives anyone evaluating a candidate a reason to do exactly the opposite of what he seeks by introducing vagueness into the process. There is already a great deal of vagueness involved in such processes, so much so that any employer/evaluator/etc who wants to reject candidates can come up with a fully credible explaination for the rejection should the matter come before court. Of course, the easiest way to deal with court actions is to settle out of court. Deep Kimchi was correct, this is a shakedown. With the vagueness in the process, we have no real way to establish that "discriminatory" practices are in fact occuring, someone prosecuting such a case cannot reasonably meet the burden of proof required.

6.1) You don't fight "discrimination" be introducing more.

6.2) If individuals have been discriminated against by other individuals, then the case must be tied to the individuals. It does not, and cannot establish a general trend. I shall say it again, where an individual has been discriminated against, that individual should be compensated at the expense of those who committed the discrimination.

6.3) Vague, nonsensical.

6.4) As above, I shall add that Apartheid, and the Nuremburg laws were justified on the grounds that they "improved" "social well-being".

6.5) "Diversity" has not been established as a total virtue, and since he is not speaking of intellectual diversity (the only real diversity), I don't see that anything worthwhile is being promoted at all.

Zero out of three. A bunch of non-arguments to justify a non-solution to a non-problem.

Right. There's no problem here. The scars that were exposed in the 60's have completely and utterly healed.


Firstly, "underrepresentation" is not a problem in itself, and no one has shown any evidence that it does constitute a problem, or that it leads to problems.

Uh, again, minorities get paid less money for the same work, on average. You can close your eyes and say "lalalalalala" all you want, it's not going to go away. Minorities make up a disproportionate number of those who exist in a state of poverty. They are over-represented in prisons. I consider this a problem.

If an actual case of the government discriminating against someone on specific, irrelevant grounds, then action needs to be related to the specific problem. If it takes the form of a government official practicing the discrimination himself (a DMV offiicial unilaterally refuses to pass blacks on a driving test that they should have rightfully passed), then the official needs to be punished, and other personnel made aware that such conduct cannot be tolerated. If it is specific policy, or legislation, then it needs to be overturned by the consititutional means available.

So, all a rasist needs to do is to come up with a reasonable excuste to exclude a minority, and all if fine. Or one could consult census information and demographic information and find the cold hard truth that you are trying so very hard to ignore. Minorities, sometimes in very subtle ways, are definitively discriminated against.

If we are talking about private sector discrimination, then it is no concern of anyone is a shopkeeper refuses to servew gays, or an employer refuses to take on hispanics. If someone wants to deny himself customers, or deny his company good employees, then that merely creates opportunities for others. In any case, one cannot rectify this without effectively stealing the property of the person in question.

So, you're fine with a restaurant hanging a sign on their window saying "no blacks." Okee dokee.

In other words, private sector affirmative action amounts to the government saying "if you hold unfashionable attitudes, your property will be stolen".

Call me strange, but that sounds more like National Socialist Germany, or the USSR, than the USA.

And if you leave things alone, you get what caused the race riots in the 60's. There is such a thing as a happy medium, you know.

Having established that no problem exists,

You've done no such thing.


let us look at your solution. Affirmative action. giving preferences to groups that have good lobbyists in DC. How will people react to this? Simple, they will regard any member of these groups who is a co-worker as being probably unsound for the job. Your solution engenders mistrust, and more racism/sexism/"whatever the heck it is" ism. As with most government programs, the "solution" only creates more of a problem.

Again, affirmative action does not give preferential treatment. There is no shortage of qualified minority people, so there's no need to hire an unqualified person under affirmative action. The status quo very often promotes unsound people to do certain jobs. For example, may I point out Mike Brown, former head of FEMA, whose only (unfaked) qualification was that he ran an organization involved with Arabian Horses. Affirmative action, in many cases, actually gets a MORE qualified person to do a certain job.

Without affirmative action, a minority in a workplace can only be assumed as someone who is sound for the job, getting through a process of evaluation and competition the same as everyone else. Exactly why this would lead to more prejudice, and discrimination is something no one has ever answered.

Without affirmative action, a white male can be assumed by non-white non-males to be inadequate at the task at hand. Things cut both ways, buddy.

As for your arguments, resorting to ridicule only shows the weakness of them.

Er...you might want to reread your posts there. YOur hypocrisy is showing.

I do have a better solution, a better policy for governments: do nothing whatsoever.

Yes, let's go back to something that clearly and demonstrably didn't work.

The government should hand out contracts based solely on the quality of the bid compared with the others in terms of price, and goods and services offered. The government should hire people based solely on their qualifications, and experiences.

That would be great. Any idea how you can assure that? How it most often happens now is that contracts are usually handed out to the company that is most likely to give a certain legilator a cushy job when they leave Congress.


As for the private sector: hands off completely. To do anything else is to cement the attitude that the government can and should steal the property of anyone with "undesirable" attitudes.

Cool, then businesses should build their own roads and freeways for people to get to their business. Let's get rid of the FCC as well. Anyone with a transmitter can transmit on any frequency they want and advertise whatever they want. Too much interference? Buy a bigger transmitter! Let's get rid of the military as well. Businesses can supply their own international security. Child labor? Go to it! Toxic chemicals? Hey, if someone needs a job in order to eat, they'll work, even it their lifespan is limited to 5 years.

If people want to name and shame firms that have these undesirable attitudes, fine, let them. Articles, books, broadcasts, letters, websites, interviews, posters, you name it. Change the defamation laws to ensure that truth is a defence.

Yes, unfortunately, both you and I know that the only sort of preaching that works is when you preach to the choir. People in the real world all too often overlook or never see information that might make them angry or uncomfortable.

It's funny, but the Republicans and Conservatives (okay, some of them...but it's a rampantly common meme,) bitch bitch and bitch, saying "Oh, but liberals have no ideas. All they do it criticize!"

Well, tell me this: Since we know, from fairly empirical means, that minorities ARE discriminated against, they DO recieve less pay for the same work and the ARE under-represented in government, how do we fix this state of affairs, other than by affirmative action? Hmmmmmm? Shall we ignore it? Yeah, that'll make it go away. Anyone can do anything if they just put their mind to it, right? A sprinter carrying a 40 lb backpack can win a race if he just tries hard enough, right?

Affirmative action (as are all actions began by man,) is imperfect, but it does indeed help. If you want a better solution, be original and think of one.

You liberals are so fond of the notion of exit strategies in military operations, how about providing one for AA? And something concrete -- not the 'when discrimination ends' kind of thing. Surely, you don't contend that AA must institutionalized until the end of time, do you?

This whole discussion could be about any utopia, Communism came immediately to mind, because the pro-AA arguments seem to be that
1. It's a great idea until some few corrupt it and
2. We can't judge it's success by examining those failures.


That's about it for me today. I can't play because I have other, serious work to do. I just wanted to keep this from being a mutual admiration society meeting.

If you don't like being insulted, don't insult people. You opened the door, don't complain when it hits you in the butt.

You did it first. Neener neener.

As for whether black and latino presidents, the very fact that you brought that up merely demonstrates your racism. The fact that you think that not having presidents of a particular race is a bad thing is racist. You are judging people by their race. A US President should be judged by his actions in office, or his inactions in office, not his race. You cannot prove to me that a black or hispanic President would be a better President than a white, or a Martian. It is simply impossible to prove because race has nothing to do with the Presidency.

Nice dodge. Being aware of race does not equal racism. All things being equal, if there was no racism, someone other than a white male would have been President by now. Dodge it all you want, but trying to equate racial awareness with racism is silly.

I find it amusing that people who claim to be against racial discrimination are obsessed with counting people by race.

The price of freedom is vigilance, my friend. See, learning from the past is fun for the whole family. I'm sure there were a whole lot of people who thought racism would just go away after the Civil War.


You have shown yourself incapable of behaving like a civilised adult. You will not be treated as one.

And you've been a paragon of comportment. Don't dish it out if you can;t take it, bub.

As to the specifics in Cat-Tribes' post, there are none. Merely the standard, already refuted defences to a failed program.

Read it again until you get it right.

Neither you nor Cat-Tribes have offered conclusive proof that general discrimination occurs today, nor have you successfully made the argument that specific individual cases need to be dealt with through general policy.

I shouldn't have to. I also shouldn't have to point out that 2+2=4. Take a look around. It's glaringly obvious. You're too busy ignoring racism to see it.

You liberals are so fond of the notion of exit strategies in military operations, how about providing one for AA? And something concrete -- not the 'when discrimination ends' kind of thing. Surely, you don't contend that AA must institutionalized until the end of time, do you?

Uh-uh. You want to criticize AA, then you provide a solution. Aren;t you supposed to be the ideology of ideas?


This whole discussion could be about any utopia, Communism came immediately to mind, because the pro-AA arguments seem to be that
1. It's a great idea until some few corrupt it and
2. We can't judge it's success by examining those failures.


Actually, the same could be said in evaluating every single thing ever done by man.

That's about it for me today. I can't play because I have other, serious work to do. I just wanted to keep this from being a mutual admiration society meeting.

Cheerio!

Uh, again, minorities get paid less money for the same work, on average.

You have gone from "underrepresentation" to "less pay for same work", and with the same amount of evidence: bugger all.

So, all a rasist needs to do is to come up with a reasonable excuste to exclude a minority, and all if fine. Or one could consult census information and demographic information and find the cold hard truth that you are trying so very hard to ignore. Minorities, sometimes in very subtle ways, are definitively discriminated against.

Yes. To show he is guilty of discrimination, the party seeking to prove this would have to do so beyond reasonable doubt, and the sheer vagueness of the hiring process provides reasonable doubt in spades. What you are suggesting is that the burden be reduced to the point that a glance at a census, and a head count at the work place is proof

So, you're fine with a restaurant hanging a sign on their window saying "no blacks." Okee dokee.

Its his restaurant. What makes you think you've the right to tell someone who he must serve?

I'm not fine with it, but whether or not my opinion matters depends on whether or not I own the place, or have invested in it.

What I am advocating is that people have the right to control their own property. What you are advocating is that if people use their property in a way that you don't agree with, you are perfectly within your rights to force him to change.

Can you tell me what the difference is between you taking a rifle into a restaurant, and saying to the owner "serve these black chaps, or I'll blow your head off", and the government forcing him to serve blacks?

I don't see one. Both are the same thing, someone being forced to do something that he doesn't want to do.

Again, affirmative action does not give preferential treatment. There is no shortage of qualified minority people, so there's no need to hire an unqualified person under affirmative action.

Yet you tell me that a look at the census against a firm's records can show discrimination.

Unless minorities can compete the same as everyone else, they will never be treated the same.

Without affirmative action, a white male can be assumed by non-white non-males to be inadequate at the task at hand. Things cut both ways, buddy.

Why? It doesn't. Without affirmative action, everyone goes through the same process.

That would be great. Any idea how you can assure that? How it most often happens now is that contracts are usually handed out to the company that is most likely to give a certain legilator a cushy job when they leave Congress.

You advocate more corruption as opposed to less. Affirmative action increases corruption in government, only in a different way, the lobby groups pushing affirmative action use a stick, the normal people bucking for contracts use a carrot. It boils down to the same thing, except we can break the stick by getting rid of affirmative action. Asking for perfection is only a way of admitting defeat.

Cool, then businesses should build their own roads and freeways for people to get to their business. Let's get rid of the FCC as well. Anyone with a transmitter can transmit on any frequency they want and advertise whatever they want. Too much interference? Buy a bigger transmitter! Let's get rid of the military as well. Businesses can supply their own international security. Child labor? Go to it! Toxic chemicals? Hey, if someone needs a job in order to eat, they'll work, even it their lifespan is limited to 5 years.

That was a whole lot of nothing.

Yes, unfortunately, both you and I know that the only sort of preaching that works is when you preach to the choir. People in the real world all too often overlook or never see information that might make them angry or uncomfortable.

Since only force has ever been used to counter racism, and only force has ever been used to defend it, you are blowing smoke. No one has tried talking, unless it was telling a legislator to use the force of government to cement his preferences.

Bottle, good post. Right on the nose. Your individual contribution to the thread stands head and shoulders above some others.

Nice dodge. Being aware of race does not equal racism. All things being equal, if there was no racism, someone other than a white male would have been President by now. Dodge it all you want, but trying to equate racial awareness with racism is silly.Nice dodge. Being aware of race does not equal racism. All things being equal, if there was no racism, someone other than a white male would have been President by now. Dodge it all you want, but trying to equate racial awareness with racism is silly.

Who said anything about racial awareness? I am talking about judging people on race.

As to your hypothesis, you should know that a non-falsifiable hypothesis is not a valid one.

In any case, the only thing that should determine who is and is not President is the electoral process. You cannot prove that every minority that has been nominated has lost because of discrimination.

The price of freedom is vigilance, my friend.

If you were discussing freedom, you would have a point. You are not. You are discussing compulsion.

I shouldn't have to. I also shouldn't have to point out that 2+2=4. Take a look around. It's glaringly obvious. You're too busy ignoring racism to see it.

You should and do have to.

I see that my little post got lost in all the verbal sparring. Figures. :(

Who said anything about racial awareness? I am talking about judging people on race.

And I'm talking about realizing that something is rotten in the state of Denmark, if one is bothers to actually be aware of the economic and representative disparities between the races. Awareness, not judging.


As to your hypothesis, you should know that a non-falsifiable hypothesis is not a valid one.

Don't get all scientific on me when you've done nothing of the sort in your posts.

In any case, the only thing that should determine who is and is not President is the electoral process. You cannot prove that every minority that has been nominated has lost because of discrimination.

Straw man. Who said anything about "every minority that has been nominated"? All I said is that it's curious that every single one of our Presidents have been white, non-Jewish Males.

If you were discussing freedom, you would have a point. You are not. You are discussing compulsion.

All law is compulsion. My freedom to kill is limited by law because it impinges too much on other's freedom. Systematic racism does likewise.



You should and do have to.

Sure. Just pay me a good fee for the amount of education you'll be receiving. Let's see. History lessons, centering on post-Civil War America and America in the 1950s-60's. Economics, centering on concentrations of wealth broken down by demographics. Sociology. Psychology.

Okay, that'll be $6000 and a year of your time.

The abuses as you mentioned in the second point is what sours many people.

For example at a certain aerodefense company, they had their quotas and they were filled by people unqualified for the job, didn't want to learn the job and did as little as possible.

We had the old black asshole who knew how to work the system. He was by far the worst and did the least.

There was one incident involving a female worker. Granted she had one of those naisly whiny annoying voices; however, she was riding him to no end about a job that he was supposed to have run. He got fed up and cold-cocked her. A supervisor noticed it; he ran and got a manager(you have to have 2 managment types to fire a person over an incident), they walked him to the door.

He was back in two weeks because he was an old black man obviously dealing with two "racist white" managment types.

AA obviously did make the situation but for many is the fact AA is what allowed for this jackass to be in the job in the first place.

One thing you did not mention was that the enforcers of AA don't care about the qualifications or desires of the person, they just want a person in a position.

The woman did sue the company and received a decent settlement I was told.

Another example of a "possible" quota system.

I used to tutor computers awhile back. I tutored this Vietnamese kid at a community college. He was a nice kid but computers where not his thing. I pulled him through with basically a C+ average(he talked to be about getting into UC Berkeley). I was attempting it as well and I had a 3.75 average with assorted extracurricular stuff.

He got in and I didn't.

Ahhh well.......

I've repeatedly seen posts that complain about affirmative action saying it is racist and promotes less qualified minorities over more qualified white males.

This is simply wrong.

I am applying to college

because of affirmative action if you are black you can get into the college I am applying for more easily that if you are white

that is a racist system that promotes less qualified minorities over more qualified white males

that is simply wrong

It is not presumptively wrong, however, to award a qualified woman, Asian Pacific American, African American, American Indian, or Latino a job, a scholarship, or a government contract over other qualified candidates (perhaps white men, perhaps other women or people of color), even those with, say, more experience, or better standardized test scores.

If the sole reason of picking a candidate over another candidate was ethnicity or race, then it is wrong.

You liberals are so fond of the notion of exit strategies in military operations, how about providing one for AA? And something concrete -- not the 'when discrimination ends' kind of thing. Surely, you don't contend that AA must institutionalized until the end of time, do you?

This whole discussion could be about any utopia, Communism came immediately to mind, because the pro-AA arguments seem to be that
1. It's a great idea until some few corrupt it and
2. We can't judge it's success by examining those failures.


That's about it for me today. I can't play because I have other, serious work to do. I just wanted to keep this from being a mutual admiration society meeting.

It's funny how you cons like to use liberal as dirty word.

It's really funny how you cons like to link everything to communism.

See where I am going?

I've never been a fan of affirmative action in schools, which to some might sound racist, but I'm not.(I'm a minority anyways.) It's just, if people don't meet the requirement, then they don't belong there, period. Why do you give people special benefits?

I've never been a fan of affirmative action in schools, which to some might sound racist, but I'm not.(I'm a minority anyways.) It's just, if people don't meet the requirement, then they don't belong there, period. Why do you give people special benefits?

That's the thing, they aren;t given special treatment. Qualifications, when affirmative action is applied as written, are not relaxed. That's the whole point of this thread. A job position or space in a university is given to AN EQUALLY QUALIFIED candidate.

The idea is to combat unconscious as well as conscious racism as well as cronyism. Cronyism AUTOMATICALLY favors the establishment, which is disproportionally white and male.

Yes AA can and does get abused. Welcome to the real world where people suck. The idea is to make it suck just a little bit less.

Whites who complain about discrimination can suck it. Even with AA, white makes get more than their fair share.

If you can't see it with the ample proof that is just seconds away if you choose to look for it, then no amount of research I do for you ever will.

I'm just wondering if the reason for this thread (and some of the disagreements on it) are caused by a bit of a misunderstanding regarding the meaning of the word affirmative action.

To me affirmative action=positive discrimination
and positive discrimination was deliberately appointing more ethnic minorities over majority to bring the stats up to a desired level.

Eg on a University picking system being from an ethnic minority adding points to the persons score so they may get in over better qualified candidates.

But if affirmative action is an umbrella term for what was stated in the original post, then I'm all for it, just positive discrimination that I'm against. I thought the two were synonymous, apparently not. whoops:(

I am applying to college

because of affirmative action if you are black you can get into the college I am applying for more easily that if you are white

that is a racist system that promotes less qualified minorities over more qualified white males

that is simply wrong


You can also get in more easily if you are an athlete, "legacy" student, related to a member of faculty, or have plenty of extra-curricular activities (that may not have any relation to academics). Or at least that was the case at my uni.
I don't think this is any better than what you described. Would you protest if a white with lower marks than you still got in because he happened to be the University president's son?

But if affirmative action is an umbrella term for what was stated in the original post, then I'm all for it, just positive discrimination that I'm against. I thought the two were synonymous, apparently not. whoops:(

Nothing wrong with positive discrimination. If I offered you a sandwich of shit on white bread or a delicious turkey on rye, I'd encourage you to positively discriminate.

What I'm wondering in this thread is why people seem to actually believe that fully qualified white people are turned away from a job because AA makes them hire black people without qualifications. It's horse shit and I defy anyone to show me a proveable example of that actually happening. Don't snow me, show me.

because of affirmative action if you are black you can get into the college I am applying for more easily that if you are white

Proof, please. What University? I can easily make a phone call and verify their entrance policy.

Nothing wrong with positive discrimination. If I offered you a sandwich of shit on white bread or a delicious turkey on rye, I'd encourage you to positively discriminate.

What I'm wondering in this thread is why people seem to actually believe that fully qualified white people are turned away from a job because AA makes them hire black people without qualifications. It's horse shit and I defy anyone to show me a proveable example of that actually happening. Don't snow me, show me.

Even though you are arguing generally on the same side as I am on this issue, you are inserting an incorrect definition of discrimination for the context. The word discrimination has multiple meanings.

I've always thought those who get all riled up about positive discrimination are those who applied for a job or college or something and got rejected for being underqualified, so end up blaming the racial minority for the reason they failed. Why else would they get angry about it but actively support the idea of people coming from a wealthier background being given a big head start in life?

I've repeatedly seen posts (usually totally unrelated to the threads) that complain about affirmative action saying it is racist and promotes less qualified minorities over more qualified white males.

This is simply wrong.Didn't the Supreme Court vote in favor of a University that practiced admission Quotas? Saying that such selection of Race, Creed, sex... etc. was permissable to allow for a diversity of people to gain education?

And I believe the courts can order businesses to have Quotas.

Proof, please. What University? I can easily make a phone call and verify their entrance policy.
University of Michigan (http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/policy/legal_docs/Diversity_%20Reaffirmed.pdf) It also lists other colleges that use that practice.

on another, but relevant note, the original verdicts also condemned some of Michigian's race baised rulings also.

Too much text to read.

I'm bisexual.

The second I'm told I was hired for a job, only because I'm part of that minority I'm quitting that job.

Minorities deserve the same treatment as anyone else. Not less, and definately not more.

If a straigth candidate is better qualified than me, he or she deserves the job. If they are equally qualified they deserve the job just as much as I do and then it should be left at the discretion of the person who makes the choice, and not at the discretion of some stupid law that claims it should be the minority automatically.

THough this was apropos:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10865903/

And for anyone who wants to pore through pages of google news results:

http://news.google.com/news?svnum=10&as_scoring=r&hl=en&hs=54X&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&tab=wn&ie=ISO-8859-1&as_drrb=q&as_qdr=&as_mind=16&as_minm=1&as_maxd=15&as_maxm=1&q=racial+equality+location:usa&sa=N&start=0

Nothing wrong with positive discrimination. If I offered you a sandwich of shit on white bread or a delicious turkey on rye, I'd encourage you to positively discriminate.

That's not what I'm talking about, that's judging on taste. eg on merit, discriminating on merit is something I'm fine with, but not what I'm talking about.

What I'm talking about is, to go back to the University example.

If you get points for the results you achieved on the exams, the people with the highest points get in, and being from an ethnic minority adds a certain number of points. They are being given an advantage based upon the race they belong to. Being judged on what race they are, eg Racism.

I see that my little post got lost in all the verbal sparring. Figures. :(

There, there. *pats Gramps's shoulder affectionately* :)

Nothing wrong with positive discrimination. If I offered you a sandwich of shit on white bread or a delicious turkey on rye, I'd encourage you to positively discriminate.

What I'm wondering in this thread is why people seem to actually believe that fully qualified white people are turned away from a job because AA makes them hire black people without qualifications. It's horse shit and I defy anyone to show me a proveable example of that actually happening. Don't snow me, show me.

Read The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy by Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M., Jr. Stratton.

Read The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy by Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M., Jr. Stratton.

Right wing authors always think that opinions that differ from theirs destroy Democracy.

"People Who Hang Toilet Paper the Wrong Way, and How They Destroy Democracy and Hate America."

As to the specifics in Cat-Tribes' post, there are none. Merely the standard, already refuted defences to a failed program.

Neither you nor Cat-Tribes have offered conclusive proof that general discrimination occurs today, nor have you successfully made the argument that specific individual cases need to be dealt with through general policy.

*snip*

Secondly, Cat Tribes' mentions, as you do, that "underrepresentation" is a problem. This is the most glaring weakness in your arguments because no one has ever established that it is a problem.

2) An empirical argument with no supporting evidence presented whatsoever. Not worth addressing.


The premise of the arguments that there is no discrimination or underrepresentation that needs to be addressed is easily refuted. I thought no one would be so naive as to take such a position.

There are these little things called history and discrimination. Although race has little or no biological significance, it has had and continues to have enormous significance. As historian Roger Wilkins has pointed out, Blacks have an about 385-year history on this continent: 245 involving slavery, 100 involving legalized discrimination, and only 40 involving anything else.

And if you do not think discrimination still ocurrs you are living in a dream world. Widespread discrimination and exclusion and their ripple effects continue to exist. Here are some (I know practically verboten here) facts:


Minorities and women remain economically disadvantaged: the black unemployment rate remains over twice the white unemployment rate; 97 percent of senior managers in Fortune 1000 corporations are white males; (28) in 1992, 33.3 percent of blacks and 29.3 percent of Hispanics lived in poverty, compared to 11.6 percent of whites. (29) In 1993, Hispanic men were half as likely as white men to be managers or professionals; (30) only 0.4 percent of senior management positions in Fortune 1000 industrial and Fortune 500 service industries are Hispanic. (31)


Blatant discrimination is a continuing problem in the labor market. Perhaps the most convincing evidence comes from "audit" studies, in which white and minority (or male and female) job seekers are given similar resumes and sent to the same set of firms to apply for a job. These studies often find that employers are less likely to interview or offer a job to minority applicants and to female applicants. (32)


Less direct evidence on discrimination comes from comparisons of earnings of blacks and whites, or males and females. (33) Even after adjusting for characteristics that affect earnings (such as years of education and work experience), these studies typically find that blacks and women are paid less than their white male counterparts. The average income for Hispanic women with college degrees is less than the average for white men with high school degrees. (34)


In 1994 alone, the Federal government received over 90,000 complaints of employment discrimination. Moreover 64,423 complaints were filed with state and local Fair Employment Practices Commissions, bringing the total last year to over 154,000. Thousands of other individuals filed complaints alleging racially motivated violence and discrimination in housing, voting, and public accommodations, to name just a few.


White males continue to hold 97 percent of senior management positions in Fortune 1000 industrial and Fortune 500 service industries. Only 0.6 percent of senior management are African American, 0.3 percent are Asian and 0.4 percent are Hispanic.


African Americans hold only 2.5 percent of top jobs in the private sector and African American men with professional degrees earn only 79 percent of the amount earned by their white counterparts. Comparably situated African American women earn only 60 percent of the amount earned by white males.


Women hold 3 to 5 percent of senior level management positions -- there are only two women CEOs in Fortune 1000 companies.


The fears and prejudices of lower-rung white male executives were listed as a principal barrier to the advancement of women and minorities. The report also found that, across the board, men advance more rapidly than women.


The unemployment rate for African Americans was more than twice that of whites in 1994. The median income for black males working full-time, full year in 1992 was 30 percent less than white males. Hispanics fared only modestly better in each category. In 1993, black and Hispanic men were half as likely as white men to be managers or professionals.


In 1992, over 50 percent of African American children under 6 and 44 percent of Hispanic children lived under the poverty level, while only 14.4 percent of white children did so. The overall poverty rates were 33.3 percent for African Americans, 29.3 percent for Hispanics and 11.6 percent for whites.


Black employment remains fragile -- in an economic downturn, black unemployment leads the downward spiral. For example, in the 1981-82 recession, black employment dropped by 9.1 percent while white employment fell by 1.6 percent. Hispanic unemployment is also much more cyclical than unemployment for white Americans. (39) Hispanic family income remains much lower, and increases at a slower rate, than white family income.


Unequal access to education plays an important role in creating and perpetuating economic disparities. In 1993, less than 3 percent of college graduates were unemployed; but whereas 22.6 percent of whites had college degrees, only 12.2 percent of African Americans and 9.0 percent of Hispanics did.


The 1990 census reflected that 2.4 percent of the nation's businesses are owned by blacks. Almost 85 percent of those black owned businesses have no employees


Even within educational categories, the economic status of minorities and women fall short. The average woman with a masters degree earns the same amount as the average man with an associate degree. (42) While college educated black women have reached earnings parity with college educated white women, college educated black men earn 76 percent of the earnings of their white male counterparts. (43) Hispanic women earn less than 65 percent of the income earned by white men with the same educational level. Hispanic men earn 81 percent of the wages earned by white men at the same educational level. The average income for Hispanic women with college degrees is less than the average for white men with high school degrees.


A study of the graduating classes of the University of Michigan Law School from 1972-1975 revealed significant wage differentials between men and women lawyers after 15 years of practice. While women earned 93.5 percent of male salaries during the first year after school, that number dropped to 61 percent after 15 years of practice. Controlling for grades, hours of work, family responsibilities, labor market experience, and choice of careers (large firms versus small firms, academia, public interest, etc.), men are left with an unexplained 13 percent earnings advantage over women.


Here is my source (http://clinton2.nara.gov/WH/EOP/OP/html/aa/aa04.html). It is the Clinton Administration's Affirmative Action Review: Report to the President. Please feel free to check its accuracy. In fact, read it. Learn it. Love it. Here are the footnotes (http://clinton2.nara.gov/WH/EOP/OP/html/aa/footnotes.html#aa28).

I'm not going to quote from everyone of the following sources, but each provides ample evidence of continuing discrimination against blacks in the United States:
National Urban League’s THE STATE OF BLACK AMERICA 2005 (Executive Summary) (javascript:Launch('publications/SOBA/2005SOBAEXCSUMMARY.pdf');)
We Don't Feel Welcome Here: African Americans and Hispanics in Metro Boston (http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/metro/discrimination_boston.php)
Civil Rights 101: RACE, CLASS, AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE (http://www.civilrights.org/research_center/civilrights101/economicjustice.html)
Race, Ethnicity, and Economic Well-Being (http://www.urban.org/Template.cfm?Section=ByTopic&NavMenuID=62&template=/TaggedContent/ViewPublication.cfm&PublicationID=8790)
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights -- Racial and Ethnic Tensions in American Communities: Poverty, Inequality, and Discrimination—Volume VII: The Mississippi Delta Report (http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/pubsndx.htm)
Is Resegregation Real? (http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/reseg03/mumford_response.php)
The Resegregation of Southern Schools (http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/reseg02/resegregation02.php)
A Multiracial Society with Segregated Schools (http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/reseg03/resegregation03.php)
Discrimination in Metropolitan Housing Markets (http://www.urban.org/Template.cfm?Section=ByTopic&NavMenuID=62&template=/TaggedContent/ViewPublication.cfm&PublicationID=7982)
Race, Place, and Segregation: Redrawing the Color Line in Our Nation's Metros (http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/metro/three_metros.php)

I can go on and on and on and on ... Don't make me.

Didn't the Supreme Court vote in favor of a University that practiced admission Quotas? Saying that such selection of Race, Creed, sex... etc. was permissable to allow for a diversity of people to gain education?


**Jeez, its impossible to have a decent discussion with the servers going down.**

Anyway, no. The Supreme Court specifically has ruled against the use of quotas by universities. In fact, in the Michigan case, the undergraduate school program was held unconsitutional due to its goals not being flexible enough.

Here is from your own document (with case links added):

On June 23, 2003, the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of raceconscious admissions policies designed to promote diversity in higher education. In a 5-to-4 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger (http://laws.findlaw.com/us/000/02-241.html),1 the Supreme Court, drawing on Justice Powell’s opinion in the 1978 case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke,2 held that student body diversity is a compelling governmental interest that can justify the use of race as a “plus” factor in a competitive admissions process. Applying its “strict scrutiny” standard of review within the context of higher education, the Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan Law School
admissions policy as constitutional. However, in a 6-to-3 decision in Gratz v. Bollinger (http://laws.findlaw.com/us/000/02-516.html),3 the Supreme Court held that the University’s current undergraduate admissions policy was not narrowly tailored to advance an interest in diversity because it was not sufficiently flexible and
did not provide enough individualized consideration of applicants to the University.

As I made clear in my opening post, all of those who talk about quotas are simply not talking about affirmative action.

Similarly those that talk about promoting unqualified candidates are not talking about affirmative action.

Affirmative action is much more subtle and complex. It is firmly held in check by the Supreme Court.

Read The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy by Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M., Jr. Stratton.

How about you cite some actual proof yourself?

I agree that affirmative action is bunk. However, my support or opposition decision is torn between the realization that minorities are still disparaged and the fact that affirmative action is as much or more reverse discrimination as it is pro-minority.

I agree that affirmative action is bunk. However, my support or opposition decision is torn between the realization that minorities are still disparaged and the fact that affirmative action is as much or more reverse discrimination as it is pro-minority.

So, you don't distinquish between giving someone unqualified a job because they are white (discrimination) and giving someone qualified a job because otherwise one has an underrepresentation of a given minority in the workplace (among other reasons)?

I'm not sure if things have changed over the past few years, but it use to be that Equal Employment Opportunity Commission representatives would hold a company's feet to the fire when they could prove that protected minorities were underrepresented in any of the standard categories of positions: Executive, Other Exempt ( from the Wage and Hour provisions ), Non-Exempt, and Hourly ( the members of which are also technically included in the Non-Exempt category ).

Underrepresentation was defacto when the percentage of any protected group within a particular category of positions was less that of comparable positions withing the SMSA ( Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area ).

Such was the pressure to match internal statistics to those of the SMSA that quotas were the defacto result, although the EEOC never called them that, and the company was never allowed to call them that.

Whether this ever was the case is debatable.

It definitely is not how the EEOC or Department of Labor work now.

Their regulations expressly forbid quotas -- de facto or otherwise -- and even forbid goals that aren't narrowly tailored to the relevant pool of qualified applicants.

It's not that we misunderstand them, it's that we've seen them used badly. We know the reality, rather than the noble-sounding precepts you so eloquently put forth.

Like this:

5. It is not presumptively wrong, however, to award a qualified woman, Asian Pacific American, African American, American Indian, or Latino a job, a scholarship, or a government contract over other qualified candidates (perhaps white men, perhaps other women or people of color), even those with, say, more experience, or better standardized test scores. Merit rarely means -- and rarely should mean – automatically concluding that the person with the highest test score or the most years experience is demonstrably the best candidate.

I'll stop you here, because you've just admitted it's perfectly fine to ignore qualifications and experience when they don't support a minority for the position. Indeed you go on:


No single test or predictor reveals everything (or often very much about what) we might want or need to know about a candidate, and even the best tests and predictors are imperfect. Institutions regularly find themselves, in applying even the most trustworthy predictors, making carefully considered but necessarily tentative distinctions between qualified candidates. Done well, that is not violating merit or thwarting merit. That is taking merit seriously -- fully aware of its promise and limits.

Oh so nobly worded! So eloquent! So full of Crap!

I'll even agree; no test can tell you if you're actually hiring an intelligent idiot. Someone well versed in how the job works, but couldn't get along with another person to save their lives. Yes, people make the choice to find the person they can best work with. When given a choice, pick the well qualified minority is what you're seeming to say here.

This is why some minorities hate Affirmitive Action. It's hard to get past the stigma that you might have been hired on skin color alone. No well-phrased essay can block that.

How about you cite some actual proof yourself?

I cited a source.

I've repeatedly seen posts (usually totally unrelated to the threads) that complain about affirmative action saying it is racist and promotes less qualified minorities over more qualified white males.

This is simply wrong.

Anyway, I'd like to start with a few statements -- largely related to what is "affirmative action."

1. The umbrella term "affirmative action" refers to a broad array of gender, race, national origin, ethnicity or color-conscious programs (what I will call "gender- and race-conscious"). It includes outreach programs, targeted at specific groups, to notify them of education, employment and contracting opportunities. And it includes programs that favor -- among similar candidates, all of whom are otherwise qualified--members of historically subordinated and still underrepresented groups.
I smell a rat. You open with a passionate discourse about how it's "not discrimination" and all sorts of other implied suggestions that seem to paint Affirmative Action in a rosy tone, never mind the fact that there isn't an Affirmative Action law on the books in any state [and for damn good reason]. Despite it "not" being discrimination, you state that it favors "historically subordinated" groups in your closing sentance above. Doesn't make much sense to me.

Affirmative action is not discrimination. The problem with this myth is that it uses the same word -- discrimination -- to describe two very different things. Job discrimination is grounded in prejudice and exclusion, whereas affirmative action is an effort to overcome prejudicial treatment through inclusion.
It's not quite that simple. Claiming that something isn't discrimination because it encourages inclusion instead of exclusion indicates a horrible misunderstanding of just what "discrimination" is, not to mention the fact that it can, potentially, work both ways.

The most effective way to cure society of exclusionary practices is to make special efforts at inclusion, which is exactly what affirmative action does. The logic of affirmative action is no different than the logic of treating a nutritional deficiency with vitamin supplements. For a healthy person, high doses of vitamin supplements may be unnecessary or even harmful, but for a person whose system is out of balance, supplements are an efficient way to restore the body's balance.

I think history has shown us what humanity is capable of in the interests of "curing" society of what it perceives to be its ills. I would be very careful, in the future, about talking about "curing" society. Society is not a self-contained machine like the human body is--it moves around, it expands, it contracts, it contradicts itself from time to time: the human body does little of this, rendering your attempts to compare the two [and possible treatments for them] unimpressive. "Balance" in society is something of a pastoral ideal, and the idea that there's a set of cure-alls for it is a ridiculous one.

2. People can, in good faith, worry about the times affirmative action operates in the wrong way. In the name of affirmative action, for example, some employers have used illegal quotas and have hired unqualified people. They have done it; they were wrong to do it; and I will not defend them or their programs. But every serious study concludes these abuses of affirmative action are exceptions -- indeed, exceptions more prevalent in the very early years of affirmative action than in today's world.
These practices would not exist were it not for the legal framework that suggested such policies in the first place. Affirmative Action legislature has always been sort of wishy-washy; most of the statutes I've read tried to get around the term "quotas" by calling it something else [usually "proportionate representation," which is "quota" in more flowery terms]. Compaines self-impose them sometimes to appear more conscientious to the public: by doing so they hope to suggest to the populace that they have a "people conscience," and if you really thought that these practices were despicable you might have something to say about the ideas behind them too.

In a perfect world, no one would have to worry about that shit because they'd all be looking after themselves as opposed to trying to appease a fickle public by self-imposing ridiculous hiring standards in order to show their "people conscience."

3. People may well have other concerns or objections to affirmative action. But at least they should accurately describe the affirmative action programs I am defending (and they should insist others do the same). Here again is what those programs do: In an effort to make available opportunities for those groups still not much represented because of historical and contemporary discrimination, in an effort to draw upon diverse skills and sensibilities, affirmative action takes gender and race into account in deciding which otherwise qualified candidates deserve a chance at education, employment, or government work.
And you've just said in as many words something that I couldn't ever have gotten you to admit the last time that we argued Affirmative Action: "affirmative action takes gender and race into account in deciding which otherwise qualified candidates deserve a chance at education, employment, or government work."

I don't care if you're qualified or not, the color of your skin, the habits and culture of your ancestors, and what may have happened to them decades or centuries ago should have no bearing whatsoever on hiring practices in any country with the cajones to call itself "free." Private companies are not under any obligation to redress the wrongs of the past--neither are private citizens. Telling them who they should or shouldn't prefer to hire--even among equally qualified candidates--is a ridiculous and insulting proposition.

Not only does it presume to suggest that it and not the employer has the best interestes of the company [and society] at heart, but it assumes that the person doing the hiring will [perhaps subconsciously] invariably favor whites over blacks, straights over gays, and so on. It's the legal equivalent of going for it on 4th down and a short 1; you're sending a message to your defense that you don't think they can hold the opponent off for another series. In this sense, you're suggesting to the employer that he will always choose qualified whites over qualified blacks.

4. But let me be more explicit. Affirmative action programs should not impose -- and the programs I defend do not impose -- criteria that substitute a search for gender and race in place of a search for qualified candidates. Merit doesn't just matter as a part of affirmative action programs. Merit is and should be at the heart of every defensible outreach, educational, employment and contracting program. Because merit matters, it is wrong if an unqualified person gets a job, a scholarship, or a government contract over a qualified person. It is wrong if an unqualified white man gets a job over a qualified woman or minority. And it's every bit as wrong if an unqualified American Indian, Latino, African American, Asian Pacific American or woman gets a job, a scholarship, or a government contract over a qualified white man.
This is true and I can't say I disagree with it on any specific point, but it doesn't defeat the fact that if I invest my money in a venture that happens to succeed, I should choose who works for me and who doesn't, regardless of other considerations. In a capitalist society, you're not compelled to assume any particular job or role if you don't want to; and if the employer hires some unqualified thug over you, that isn't something I'd roll the guns out over, since if he wants to run his company into the ground thats his business. If you repeatedly overlook hiring qualified candidates in favor of unqualified ones [regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, etc], reality will catch up with you sooner or later and that will be punishment enough. There's no sense in wasting millions of my tax dollars to fix a problem that doesn't need fixing.

5. It is not presumptively wrong, however, to award a qualified woman, Asian Pacific American, African American, American Indian, or Latino a job, a scholarship, or a government contract over other qualified candidates (perhaps white men, perhaps other women or people of color), even those with, say, more experience, or better standardized test scores. Merit rarely means -- and rarely should mean ? automatically concluding that the person with the highest test score or the most years experience is demonstrably the best candidate. No single test or predictor reveals everything (or often very much about what) we might want or need to know about a candidate, and even the best tests and predictors are imperfect. Institutions regularly find themselves, in applying even the most trustworthy predictors, making carefully considered but necessarily tentative distinctions between qualified candidates. Done well, that is not violating merit or thwarting merit. That is taking merit seriously -- fully aware of its promise and limits.
Yes and the fact that there is no litmus test only lends my argument more credance: for this reason it makes infinately more sense to allow the hiring manager to make his own decisions, since one could reasonably assume that he knows what the job requires both aptitude-wise and personality-wise. The government, on the other hand, is often somewhat removed from the situation and doesn't have the knowledge [and shouldn't have the authority] to dictate hiring pracices in any way. Part of the problem with Affirmative Action isn't so much with what it mandates but with what it suggests: you've already touched upon this briefly in point number two.

6. Affirmative action traces its moral roots to several related goals: (1) fighting discrimination, (2) compensating for past injuries, (3) striving for a fair distribution of opportunities and responsibilities, (4) seeking social well-being, and (5) promoting diversity.
See, now this is one of the mistakes I'm seeing on a near-daily basis, especially from the American liberals: they seem more interested in judging programs, leaders, and so forth on intentions rather than results [for proof of this, examine traditional liberal viewpoints on Woodrow Wilson, Lyndon B Johnson, FDR, and {for some of them at least} the Animal Liberation Front]. Even here, you commend the ideas that AA supports, and shun the self-imposed quotas that some companies have resorted to because of Affirmative Action laws. You've essentially expressed support for the ideas and disdain for the results, ignoring the fact that there's an undeniable link between the two.

7. We should keep the grounds we are debating clear. If you wish to disagree with my definition of affirmative action, that is fine. But you wish to insist affirmative action as it exists is something different, you should be clear exactly to what you are referring and be prepared to defend your definition. I believe my statements are consistent with affirmative action law and general practices. If you wish to provide an alternate theoretical definition, you should be clear what your definition is and why it is relevant.

Also, there are distinctions between public and private affirmative action programs, programs that are court-ordered as a remedy for discrimination, etc. Affirmative action arises in a number of situations, but is most often discussed in terms of education or employment. If you are going to make an argument based on a specific context, you need to be clear. Specificity is your friend.
I don't really so much have a problem with how you've defined it, and I'll agree there's no small amount of misconception, but its still ridiculous and there's a reason it's not on the books anymore [to my knowledge].

5. It is not presumptively wrong, however, to award a qualified woman, Asian Pacific American, African American, American Indian, or Latino a job, a scholarship, or a government contract over other qualified candidates (perhaps white men, perhaps other women or people of color), even those with, say, more experience, or better standardized test scores.

Some animals are more equal than others, right?

Some animals are more equal than others, right?

And this was apropos of...?

Minorities and women remain economically disadvantaged: the black unemployment rate remains over twice the white unemployment rate; 97 percent of senior managers in Fortune 1000 corporations are white males; (28) in 1992, 33.3 percent of blacks and 29.3 percent of Hispanics lived in poverty, compared to 11.6 percent of whites. (29) In 1993, Hispanic men were half as likely as white men to be managers or professionals; (30) only 0.4 percent of senior management positions in Fortune 1000 industrial and Fortune 500 service industries are Hispanic. (31)

Everything that isn't quoted can be ascribed to at least some degree to discrimination. However, I have to add that:

Unemployment doesn't necessarily mean discrimination. There is, beyond any doubt, a significant element of black culture that outright condones irresponsible behavior like unprotected sex, trashes people who want to work or get an education, and praises drug use and abuse of women (be it through not paying child support, leaving the family, or physical/emotional abuse).

As a result of this cultural element, many blacks simply don't bother to get a job or education and instead blame it on oppression. This is proven by Hispanics; although they have a long way to go to achieve proportionate representation, they don't have the same problems as blacks.

For example:

Hispanic labor participation is 68.4% while blacks are only 63.5%.
Hispanic unemployment is only 6.0% while blacks have a rate of 9.3%.

So, it seems that there is a significant cultural problem in the black community far beyond that of the Hispanic community, which means a lot of their problem isn't so much discrimination as it is the problems within their own community. That destructive element aforementioned has a lot to do with the decay in education and employment in black America. Discrimination plays a significant role, but not enough to even remotely justify the discrepancy between blacks and Hispanics.

I understand what it is, but in a truth-altering Fox News kind of way.

And this was apropos of...?

It is not presumptively wrong, however, to award a qualified woman, Asian Pacific American, African American, American Indian, or Latino a job, a scholarship, or a government contract over other qualified candidates (perhaps white men, perhaps other women or people of color), even those with, say, more experience, or better standardized test scores.

Awarding someone less qualified just because they're a certain gender or ethnic group smacks of racism.

What I do object to is the way affirmative action helps people who sometimes don't need it. For example, middle class black people need no more help to succeed than middle class white people. The way I see it, affirmative action is supposed to make opportunity more equal, and so only those who start from a disadvantaged position should benefit from it - the reason black people should often recieve help in the form of affirmitive action is because they are far more likely to come from a disadvantaged background.

A person from an inner-city slum, whatever their ethnicity or gender, who manages to get exceptional grades at school is probably more academically qualified than a person from a nice middle class background who recieves equally good grades, and this should be taken into account by employers and college admissions.

A real neat positive spin on killing people for financial gain-well done!

You should be a politician. Unless you are already?:confused:

It is not presumptively wrong, however, to award a qualified woman, Asian Pacific American, African American, American Indian, or Latino a job, a scholarship, or a government contract over other qualified candidates (perhaps white men, perhaps other women or people of color), even those with, say, more experience, or better standardized test scores.

Awarding someone less qualified just because they're a certain gender or ethnic group smacks of racism.

You're assuming that experience and standardized test scores are the only standards of merit, aside from race, that are being considered.

Unemployment doesn't necessarily mean discrimination. There is, beyond any doubt, a significant element of black culture that outright condones irresponsible behavior like unprotected sex, trashes people who want to work or get an education, and praises drug use and abuse of women (be it through not paying child support, leaving the family, or physical/emotional abuse).
There's a significant element of white culture that's exactly the same--they're called ignorant ass redneck cracker peckerwoods, and the country is full of them. Let's leave the bullshit out of the discussion, why don't we.

One thing I've always wondered about is this:

If you have a company, and let's say you have 1000 employees, and you end up hiring less than a certain percentage of minorities, let's say less than 18 percent African-Americans, a plaintiff's lawyer shows up at your office and says that unless you settle out of court, he's going to have 50 people in court to say that you don't hire enough African-Americans.

It's the exact scenario you say you won't defend - quotas of unqualified people.

These lawsuits are a dime a dozen around here. Most of the time, the company settles out of court, because it's cheaper than bothering to go to court.

Nice way to make a living if you're a lawyer with no sense of ethics. And the laws and climate of affirmative action make this possible.

Quotas are illegal.

To successfully sue for discrimination, a plaintiff must show:

A) that he/she does in fact meet standard qualifications for hiring;
B) that he/she was not hired because of her/his race/gender/etc.

The first part is relatively easy. Usually, unless some insider comes forward to admit that the company discriminated, one has to show a history of discrimination. This would apply if, say, the number of African Americans hired is significantly less than the number of qualified African Americans who apply.

It is actually not that easy to sue for discrimination. Usually, the costs are greater for the plaintiff than they could ever be for the defending business... unless the business is blatantly discriminatory, in which case the chances of winning are high.

Supreme Court decisions notwithstanding, I've had three of these last year alone.

Judges around here are largely Democratic appointees, and none of them will dismiss the case. The whole thing drags on until the discovery period is over, by which time you've spent a LOT of money on the idiocy.

By the time you re-educate the judge and get the thing dismissed, you've spent more than you would have settled for.

Something still smells funny to me. Discovery shouldn't cost that much, especially if you have an in-house lawyer and nothing to hide. Of course, if you have to keep close tabs on what they "discover" and keep your laywers at work preventing evidence from getting into court... then, it could be expensive after all.

It's a shakedown, more or less.

If so, it seems like one that would tend to shake out only those businesses that actually discriminate. Most cases--the blatantly absurd ones in which someone is just mad about not being hired--probably get thrown out after the first hearing... even with "corrupt" judges.

In any case, the problem is not with affirmative action itself, but with illegalities and corruption that you face locally. If it's true, I am truly sorry to hear that... not only because of its inherent injustice, but because it gives "affirmative action" a bad name that it does not deserve.

that is a racist system that promotes less qualified minorities over more qualified white males

Except it's not. The sole content of most affirmative actions policies is that if you have two equally-qualified applicants, one black and one white, the black one will have a better chance of being accepted. Why? Because adjustment is done via economic status, and blacks a statistically more likely to be impoverished than whites.

Nonsense. Affirmative action does nothing of the sort, it merely creates more prejudice. With affirmative action, people will tend to suspect that each member of the group(s) favoured by affirmative action are not fully-qualified, and are merely there because of affirmative action.

Read the first post. The "beneficiaries" of affirmative action are 100% qualified. Therefore, the problem here is people's false notions of what affirmative action is and (probably) some pre-existing prejudice. The problem is theirs, not the program's. They need to be educated.

The two types of discrimination are relevant discrimination (things essential to the job in question, taking an IT job as an example, discriminating between different people because of their individual sets of skills in the IT field), and irrelevant discrimination (in the same job, gender or race)

Actually, from a legal standpoint the two types of discrimination are "invidious" and "non-invidious"--which relate to the two you name, but are not identical. Invidious discrimination occurs when one discriminates in order to disadvantage members of a particular group. Discrimination is non-invidious when it is done for any other reason.

Thus, if I refuse to hire black people--or refuse to hire them unless they are exceptionally well-qualified and I simply cannot turn them down (or get away with it--I am guilty of invidious discrimination.

If, on the other hand, from a pool of qualified applicants I select some blacks and some whites--but I try to take as many qualified blacks as I can because I want a more diverse workplace--the discrimination is non-invidious. I have not discriminated, as you say, based on "relevant" criteria--the applicants are all, at any rate, well-qualified. However, I am not disenfranchising anyone either. I am simply producing a more diverse workforce, which is a perfectly noble motive.

In principle, this is no different than a college that, say, strives for a diversity of backgrounds in its students: some musicians, some scientists, some football players, some runners. They start with a qualified applicant pool, but rather than simply tick down the list to take all the very highest test scores ("relevant" discrimination), which might give them a class of all scientists, mathematicians, and poets... they try to get a more diverse mixture. Not relevant to "qualifications," but important to the kind of environment the college hopes to produce.

One point. If you propose, through affirmative action, to ameliorate previous grievances, it is an untenable and somewhat assinine course to pursue.

Furthermore, in an inherently egalitarian state, any form of discrimination is a contradiction of its central tenets, and accordingly wrong, whilst in a white majority state, discrimination against the white in any circumstance is unjustifiable.

I am applying to college

because of affirmative action if you are black you can get into the college I am applying for more easily that if you are white

that is a racist system that promotes less qualified minorities over more qualified white males

that is simply wrong

*sigh*

Again, the determination of qualifications occurs prior to the affirmative action "step." It does NOT promote "less qualified" minorities.

What it does do is establish a preference for what the college wants its incoming class to look like. These sorts or preferences exist with or without affirmative action. You are far more likely to be rejected from a college because you come from the wrong state than because you are white.

(A paper, posted at one point on NS, determined that the average effect of affirmative action programs on white applicants to Ivy League schools is in the range of 2%. In other words, if you are clearly, unequivocally qualified--it has no effect on you at all. Its effects occur on the margins, and apply to applicants whose chances of admission were not very good anyway.)

If a straigth candidate is better qualified than me, he or she deserves the job. If they are equally qualified they deserve the job just as much as I do and then it should be left at the discretion of the person who makes the choice, and not at the discretion of some stupid law that claims it should be the minority automatically.

What law would that be?

So, you don't distinquish between giving someone unqualified a job because they are white (discrimination) and giving someone qualified a job because otherwise one has an underrepresentation of a given minority in the workplace (among other reasons)?
If you payed attention, you would have noticed the fact that I do distinguish between them is the problem. But, are you honestly going to tell me you are under the delusion affirmative action never amounts to reverse discrimination (the opposite of your "example")?

The sole content of most affirmative actions policies is that if you have two equally-qualified applicants, one black and one white, the black one will have a better chance of being accepted.

This is why so many profess to be against affirmative action.

If you think the white man is discriminated against in this nation, you haven't looked closely at who runs our courts, our corporations, legislature and who every single one of our Presidents are. Boo-frickin hoo. The fact is that EVEN WITH affirmative action, the white man (and I am one,) still wields inordinate wealth, influence and power in this country.

So excuse me if I don't weep for you.

Here's a quick idea to run in your sub-conscious. Maybe, just maybe, all "white men" don't actually like each other.

Maybe, just maybe, race is NOT the defining factor; but "ability to get on with the boss" is the defining factor.

Maybe, just maybe, the reason for quotas falling below certain percentages is that minorities that are given quota for forum are able to cause a LOT more problems for said company; and are thus rebuked.

A company of mine, which shall remain nameless, likes to hire asthmatics and Christian denominations because they can mark off a "disabled employee" from their quota, and they know they won't have any complaints about new religious holidays having to be enforced.

Affirmative Action/Positive Discrimination is like most Govermental Ideas:
A Postive Reward that is Organised to be a landfill of Bureacracy that is only quoted by those that tend to benefit unfairly from it's introduction.

Show me all the "white men" who are calling for Affirmative Action in sweat-shops. Then realise that despite "The White Man" owning as much as he does, thousands of white men die on the streets each year.

What I do object to is the way affirmative action helps people who sometimes don't need it. For example, middle class black people need no more help to succeed than middle class white people. The way I see it, affirmative action is supposed to make opportunity more equal, and so only those who start from a disadvantaged position should benefit from it - the reason black people should often recieve help in the form of affirmitive action is because they are far more likely to come from a disadvantaged background.

A person from an inner-city slum, whatever their ethnicity or gender, who manages to get exceptional grades at school is probably more academically qualified than a person from a nice middle class background who recieves equally good grades, and this should be taken into account by employers and college admissions.

Actually, statistically speaking, race is a more significant factor than wealth.

I don't have the exact citation handy, but off-hand I know that Stanley Fish provides such evidence in his excellent book There's No Such Thing as Free Speech... and It's a Good Thing, Too.

Furthermore, in an inherently egalitarian state, any form of discrimination is a contradiction of its central tenets, and accordingly wrong...

That's exactly what the Supreme Court thought, right up through the 1930s... when, in the face of massive inequality, suffering, and outright class war, they realized that an unthinking insistence on the state's formal "neutrality" is untenable under conditions of very real inequality. Someone must defend the victims of the powerful.

See The Constitution Besieged: The Rise and Demise of Lochner Era Police Powers Jurisprudence by Howard Gillman (Duke University Press: 1994).

welcome to a nation where everyone stands on their own merits, no slaves and no royalty, but some people will be propped up taller than you regardless of merit...

if a company switches to internet based hiring to avoid even the slightest appearance of discrimination and hires via resume and email interview they have done well, treating everyone equally.

Actually, experiments have shown that a person's name can have a profound impact on the likelihood that he/she will even be called in for an interview--if, that is, it "sounds" white or black. Here is a link to an article discussing two such experiments:

http://www.collegejournal.com/successwork/workplacediversity/20030910-wessel.html

I've repeatedly seen posts (usually totally unrelated to the threads) that complain about affirmative action saying it is racist and promotes less qualified minorities over more qualified white males.

This is simply wrong.

Anyway, I'd like to start with a few statements -- largely related to what is "affirmative action."

1. The umbrella term "affirmative action" refers to a broad array of gender, race, national origin, ethnicity or color-conscious programs (what I will call "gender- and race-conscious"). It includes outreach programs, targeted at specific groups, to notify them of education, employment and contracting opportunities. And it includes programs that favor -- among similar candidates, all of whom are otherwise qualified--members of historically subordinated and still underrepresented groups.



If I have two equally qualified candidates, and one of them is given the job BECAUSE he/she is a member of a "historically subordinated and still underrepresented groups", then I have discriminated AGAINST the other candidate.

It's really that simple.

Firstly, "underrepresentation" is not a problem in itself, and no one has shown any evidence that it does constitute a problem, or that it leads to problems.

Underrepresentation exists where a business (or school) employs people (accepts students) out of proportion to their numbers in a relevant population--say, people who live nearby, or people with reasonable access to the school.

This is not, in itself, a problem. There may be any number of reasons that certain people are underrepresented in certain jobs, companies, or schools--reasons which may not relate at all (or only indirectly) to the hiring or acceptance policies of those institutions.

It should, however, provoke the question--why? That is to say, such underrepresentation may be evidence of a problem after all; if not in the institution, perhaps somewhere else in society. Or maybe not.

That "maybe" is one of the reasons that quotas are illegal.

If we are talking about private sector discrimination, then it is no concern of anyone is a shopkeeper refuses to servew gays, or an employer refuses to take on hispanics. If someone wants to deny himself customers, or deny his company good employees, then that merely creates opportunities for others.

A nice theory, but the real world does not work that way. Everyone in the great chain of commerce can excuse himself: "It's not my fault that blacks did not get an education," says the businessman; "But it's not my fault that blacks did not do well in high school," says the university administrator; "But it's not my fault that black children get no support from their parents," says the high school teacher: "blame the businessman who would not give them a job."

In any case, one cannot rectify this without effectively stealing the property of the person in question.

Now you're just making me laugh. This argument rests on a "natural right" theory of property that, while it still makes for some great rhetorical flourishes, has been effectively dead politically at least since West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937) when the Supreme Court gave "fresh consideration" to the question of state police powers and finally permitted a minimum wage on the grounds that "workers... in an unequal position with respect to bargaining power" were "exploited" by their employers and "relatively defenceless against the denial of a living wage."

The right to property is an important one, but to adhere to it so blindly that governments cannot legislate for the general welfare of their subjects is to subordinate the right to life to rights of property. Which one do you believe is more sacred?

In other words, private sector affirmative action amounts to the government saying "if you hold unfashionable attitudes, your property will be stolen".

Not at all. There is quite a bit of Supreme Court doctrine directed toward this very issue; the doctrine you claim would not get past the critical glare of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Congress and the States are allowed to infringe on contractual relations only when a valid legislative purpose is served.

Call me strange, but that sounds more like National Socialist Germany, or the USSR, than the USA.

Blatantly absurd comparisons to the Nazis may win debates in gradeschool, but you're playing with the big boys now.

Affirmative action. giving preferences to groups that have good lobbyists in DC.

You think disenfranchized groups have better lobbyists than the corporate elite? You are delusional.

How will people react to this? Simple, they will regard any member of these groups who is a co-worker as being probably unsound for the job.

This results from a combination of misunderstanding Affirmative Action, and their own pre-existing prejudice. One cannot undermine an effort to stamp out discrimination by appeals to prejudice. "But what will people think?!" That depends on them.

More than likely, as Affirmative Action improves the numbers of minorities in employment, white people will get to know them and learn that they are, in fact, qualified. It is low representation that encourages prejudice, because people come to assume that most minorities are not qualified to work with them--despite the rare exception that actually makes it. By increasing white exposure to qualified minority peers, Affirmative Action undermines their causes for prejudice.

Without affirmative action, a minority in a workplace can only be assumed as someone who is sound for the job, getting through a process of evaluation and competition the same as everyone else.

Exactly. Engendering the false impression that only this small number of minority applicants was actually qualified. (And it must be false, if Affirmative Action only does what it says, viz., improving the hiring rate of qualified applicants.)

Exactly why this would lead to more prejudice, and discrimination is something no one has ever answered.

Now I have. You're welcome.

I do have a better solution, a better policy for governments: do nothing whatsoever.

They've tried this. It failed miserably.

The government should hand out contracts based solely on the quality of the bid compared with the others in terms of price, and goods and services offered. The government should hire people based solely on their qualifications, and experiences.

Ahh, but didn't you already say that employers should be allowed to hire based on whatever criteria they want? Contradict yourself much?

To remind you, "If someone wants to deny himself customers, or deny his company good employees, then that merely creates opportunities for others."

Why should private employers have this right, but not the public? Why should the public not do what it likes with its property, through its executive arm--the government?

If I have two equally qualified candidates, and one of them is given the job BECAUSE he/she is a member of a "historically subordinated and still underrepresented groups", then I have discriminated AGAINST the other candidate.

It's really that simple.
And if you choose the other person? Assuming equal qualifications of course? That isn't discrimination? What caused you to choose this other person? Clearly something...you are making it sound as if choosing the minority candidate is always discrimination, unless they are much more qualified than the other applicants.

Here's a solution:

If you have two applicants, both equally qualified, and you can only choose one, make them have a duel. The winner gets the job. :)

If I have two equally qualified candidates, and one of them is given the job BECAUSE he/she is a member of a "historically subordinated and still underrepresented groups", then I have discriminated AGAINST the other candidate.

It's really that simple.

No, it's really not.

If they are equally qualified, then I can make my decision based on my other goals (besides hiring a qualified individual).

Thus, moral (and legal) evaluations at this point apply to those goals.

Goal #1: To promote diversity. This is a valid goal, as it does not discriminate against any group. You are willing to hire white people--indeed, most of your employees are probably white. But you also want more black people, because you value diversity--a fine value indeed.

Goal #2: To keep this place white. This is not a valid goal, since it discriminates against non-white groups. You hire white people, and you are not willing to hire black people (unless, perhaps, you absolutely have to).

Either way you cut it, one applicant does not get the job. Moreover, no matter what you decide, the reason that this person does not get the job is not "fair" to her/him. It is not fair that I am not hired because I am white, and my competitor happens to be black; and it is equally unfair that I should not be hired because I didn't join the right fraternity, or because my Dad doesn't know the right people, or I don't belong to the right clubs, etc. etc.

Fairness is not the issue. Fairness has been satisfied, as far as it can be, in the fact that the person who gets the job is qualified (and, in your example, as qualified as I am).

The crime is not being unfair. Hiring decisions are almost always unfair: someone gets hired for reasons other than her/his qualifications precisely because he/she is chosen from a pool of qualified applicants..

When you have a pool of qualified applicants, the final decision is necessarily something other than qualifications. Thus, the motivation of that decision matters.

It may help if I give a possible situation for the person doing the hiring.

For the sake of simplicity, let's say I only have 20 employees... and they are all white. They are not all white because I have been discriminating against blacks. Rather, I have had trouble attracting qualified black applicants... so, the final "competition" always comes down to several white people.

Now, finally, I have a new position, and the two most qualified candidates are a black guy and a white guy. I finally have an opportunity to correct what I perceive as an imbalance in the diversity of my employees, and to do so by hiring a well-qualified individual.

Is it really invidious discrimination if I choose to do so? Have I done something wrong? Would it have been better to have simply flipped a coin to determine who gets the job?

The right to property is an important one, but to adhere to it so blindly that governments cannot legislate for the general welfare of their subjects is to subordinate the right to life to rights of property. Which one do you believe is more sacred?
They're the same thing--or rather they would be under a properly structured set of ethics. The "right to life" you are referring to is "The right to the tools of life," be it free soup kitchens, jobs, cars, or whatever else.

The right to life literally defined means the right to exist and to profit or lose off one's own independent choices and actions. The right to life [as it exists in correlation with the right to property, rather than the misconception you seem to be holding about it being at war with property rights] doesn't guarantee its beneficiary a "free ride" or any similar assistance.

I find it amusing that people who claim to be against racial discrimination are obsessed with counting people by race.

Nonsense. That's like criticising people who are opposed to economic inequality for counting people by salary.

Affirmative action is racial, and/or sexual discrimination because it introduces the making of choices in terms of race and sex.

Yes, and a doctor's prescribing hormones to treat an imbalance is a matter of sex discrimination; or his diagnosis of sickle-cell anemia is race discrimination; because these introduce the making of choices in terms of race and sex.

The issue is not "discrimination" in the simple definition of "making distinctions." The issue here is making distinctions without a good reason. The courts have decided, and ethics dictates, that promoting diversity is a good reason, so long as it does not sacrifice considerations of individual merit.

6.1) You don't fight "discrimination" be introducing more.

You are equivocating. You do fight invidious discrimination with positive discrimination that contravenes it. They are both called "discrimination" in the sense of "making distinctions," but one is vile, while the other serves a good purpose. Since the "act" is the same, judgments must be based on the purpose they serve.

6.4) As above, I shall add that Apartheid, and the Nuremburg laws were justified on the grounds that they "improved" "social well-being".

All laws are. What's your point?

The right to life literally defined means the right to exist and to profit or lose off one's own independent choices and actions. The right to life [as it exists in correlation with the right to property, rather than the misconception you seem to be holding about it being at war with property rights] doesn't guarantee its beneficiary a "free ride" or any similar assistance.

No one said anything about a "free ride."

More importantly, your argument only makes sense in the world of meaningless abstractions. This is what the Supreme Court realized in the 30s. They had persevered in maintaining abstract definitions as long as they could... that is, until reality invaded to the point that they could not deny that the rights of vested property are, at times, at odds with the rights of the unpropertied. Neither can be absolute if the government is meant to promote the general welfare. Sometimes it has to take sides.

Would it have been better to have simply flipped a coin to determine who gets the job?
Yes.

Yes, and a doctor's prescribing hormones to treat an imbalance is a matter of sex discrimination; or his diagnosis of sickle-cell anemia is race discrimination; because these introduce the making of choices in terms of race and sex.

The issue is not "discrimination" in the simple definition of "making distinctions." The issue here is making distinctions without a good reason. The courts have decided, and ethics dictates, that promoting diversity is a good reason, so long as it does not sacrifice considerations of individual merit.
Those are two different topics and you know it. Don't give me bullshit about "distinctions." There is no medical or scientific reason to hire a qualified person of one race or gender over another qualified person of a different race or gender solely based on race or gender.

Why do most of you misunderstand US affirmative action policies?
Perhaps because they are "affirmative" only to a certain mentality?

Affirmative action traces its moral roots to several related goals: (1) fighting discrimination, (2) compensating for past injuries, (3) striving for a fair distribution of opportunities and responsibilities, (4) seeking social well-being, and (5) promoting diversity.


You can't fight discrimination with discrimination. You don't compensate for past injuries by treating people as being less than they are; equal. There is nothing moral about the federal government using the force of legislation to promote opportunities or responsibilities. I don't need the government seeking social well-being. Diversity is good, but a pluralist society will only succeed if it brings everyone together. Affirmative Action divides people by race, which is clearly unconstitutional and immoral. Affirmative Action is an unevolved and unproductive policy and should be done away with.

I smell a rat. You open with a passionate discourse about how it's "not discrimination" and all sorts of other implied suggestions that seem to paint Affirmative Action in a rosy tone, never mind the fact that there isn't an Affirmative Action law on the books in any state [and for damn good reason]. Despite it "not" being discrimination, you state that it favors "historically subordinated" groups in your closing sentance above. Doesn't make much sense to me.

Because "discrimination" is such a "bad" word, sometimes those of us who defend Affirmative Action feel the need to stress that it is not "discrimination."

Well, it's not--at least, not in the way most people use the word.

Of course, if you water it down to the pure sense of "making distinctions", then yes: Affirmative Action "discriminates." But there is nothing inherently wrong with discrimination, if what you mean is "making distinctions." We make all sorts of valid distinctions all the time. Indeed, there is not even anything inherently wrong with making racial distinctions, or distinctions based on gender. Physicians do this, and for good reason.

That is the key: the reason. If you discriminate against someone in order to disenfranchise a particular group, or due to prejudice about the group to which he belongs, then you are guilty of invidious discrimination because these are not good reasons. If, on the other hand, you distinguish between qualified applicants such that you prefer minorities in order to combat invidious discrimination, or in order to improve diversity, then this is a perfectly valid kind of discrimination.

"Balance" in society is something of a pastoral ideal, and the idea that there's a set of cure-alls for it is a ridiculous one.

No one (at least that I can see) is claiming we can make things "perfect". Moreover, advocates of Affirmative Action are willing to accept reasonable limits to the sort of policies that can be used: quotas, for example, are out. The idea that there is a "cure-all" for society is, indeed, ridiculous; but so is the notion that society does not require "treatment."

The advocates of Affirmative Action--who think we must do something--are not the extremists here. Its opponents--who would do nothing--are.

(By the way, what does this have to do with sheep?)

Yes and the fact that there is no litmus test only lends my argument more credance: for this reason it makes infinately more sense to allow the hiring manager to make his own decisions, since one could reasonably assume that he knows what the job requires both aptitude-wise and personality-wise.

Right... Yet the government's most direct involvement in affirmative action occurs when employers or schools try to make their own decisions, which some white kid challenges in court.

See, now this is one of the mistakes I'm seeing on a near-daily basis, especially from the American liberals: they seem more interested in judging programs, leaders, and so forth on intentions rather than results [for proof of this, examine traditional liberal viewpoints on Woodrow Wilson, Lyndon B Johnson, FDR, and {for some of them at least} the Animal Liberation Front]. Even here, you commend the ideas that AA supports, and shun the self-imposed quotas that some companies have resorted to because of Affirmative Action laws. You've essentially expressed support for the ideas and disdain for the results, ignoring the fact that there's an undeniable link between the two.

Quotas are, and have been, the exception rather than the rule. Where they appear, they are easily challenged. Opponents go on and on about the horrors of quota systems, yet how many examples can you provide? And please, don't bother with the ubiquitous, "there are several businesses near here" routine. We've all heard it before, and it's becoming more than a little trite. If you have evidence, give it to us. Personally, I find it hard to believe that every opponent of Affirmative Action knows "several businesses" that use racial quotas, verification of which is impossible. Maybe you all just live in the same place?

If you want to talk about the results of Affirmative Action, then you will have to consider the improvements it has generated in minority employment and education.

There is no medical or scientific reason to hire a qualified person of one race or gender over another qualified person of a different race or gender solely based on race or gender.

Who said anything about "medical" or "scientific" reasons? There are perfectly good social reasons to do so, not to mention the fact that many employers and universities like to advertise "diversity" for a variety of market-related reasons. (Capitalists ought to love that... they want to practice Affirmative Action.)

Ethics does not care what "kind" of reason it is, as long as it is a good reason. Neither does the law.

You can't fight discrimination with discrimination.

History would seem to suggest otherwise.

You don't compensate for past injuries by treating people as being less than they are; equal.

The individuals are equal, and equally qualified: it is that fact, and that fact alone, that makes considerations beyond the individual admissible to decisions between individuals.

The fact of the matter is that, whatever formal (or actual) equality adheres to individuals, groups are not treated equally. Once considerations of individual merit are exhausted, it makes perfect sense to consider matters of social equality.

There is nothing moral about the federal government using the force of legislation to promote opportunities or responsibilities.

Well, then let's also dispose of all taxes and subsidies; let's do away with minimum wages, maximum hours, and health codes; in fact, let's do away with most of our government's commercial legislation since the late nineteenth century, and see where we wind up... ah yes, back in the late nineteenth century, in the midst of open class war and social chaos. That ought to be fun.

I don't need the government seeking social well-being.

Ahh, good. You'll enjoy the riots.

Diversity is good, but a pluralist society will only succeed if it brings everyone together.

As long as it doesn't bring them together by... actually bringing them together? That is, after all, what Affirmative Action seeks to do: make sure that all the colors get to play together.

Affirmative Action divides people by race, which is clearly unconstitutional and immoral.

If it were "clearly" unconstitutional, the Supreme Court might be inclined to say so.

Uhm... I'm not going read 7 pages of debate, when I'm going to say roughly the same thing regardless... I'm normally about as Liberal as it gets, but I simply cannot defend Affirmative Action. As far as I'm concerned, having an advantage due to being a minority is every bit as wrong as having an advantage due to being a majority. I don't see why so many sensible and intelligent people cannot understand that.

As far as I'm concerned, having an advantage due to being a minority is every bit as wrong as having an advantage due to being a majority. I don't see why so many sensible and intelligent people cannot understand that.

As far as reality is concerned, being a minority is never an "advantage"--including under legitimate Affirmative Action policies, which require that minority applicants be just as qualified as anyone else.

"Advantage" implies competition. But the competitive part of getting a job is the part that gets one into the qualified applicant pool. Within that pool, applicants are not "competing" with one another anyway, since decisions are necessarily based on things other than their qualifications.

"Advantage" cannot exist after the competition has been dispensed with. Invidious discrimination occurs when some people are not even allowed to compete, on the basis of race/gender/etc.

I don't see why so many sensible and intelligent people cannot understand that.

Would the people defending affirmative action be willing to stand such policies in recruiting athletes and such?

After all, whites and Asians are underrepresented in the NBA...

Give me a fucking break. Preferences on the basis of race or gender are biased and unfair by any bloody standard.

Here's an idea: How about if on job and college applications, the ethnicity box is just removed completely? Now there's total fairness.

Here's an idea: How about if on job and college applications, the ethnicity box is just removed completely? Now there's total fairness.
The French do that. In fact, even names are sometimes removed because they could give clues. Doesn't help either.

I think though that people of majorities should get easier access to scholarships - government provided if necessary.

Would the people defending affirmative action be willing to stand such policies in recruiting athletes and such?

After all, whites and Asians are underrepresented in the NBA...

Give me a fucking break. Preferences on the basis of race or gender are biased and unfair by any bloody standard.

Here's an idea: How about if on job and college applications, the ethnicity box is just removed completely? Now there's total fairness.

Amen.

Would the people defending affirmative action be willing to stand such policies in recruiting athletes and such?

After all, whites and Asians are underrepresented in the NBA...

Give me a fucking break. Preferences on the basis of race or gender are biased and unfair by any bloody standard.

Here's an idea: How about if on job and college applications, the ethnicity box is just removed completely? Now there's total fairness.

If qualified white players were being turned away from the NBA, then yeah, I'd support it. That's not the case. In fact, since the majority of coaches and GM's in sports are white, I'd say that sports still have a problem with discrimination.

The fact is that achievment in sports is a much much easier thing to measure than achievement in life.

Here is my view on AA. (No I didn't read the entire thread.)

First off, let me say that Affirmative Action does have some good parts. Mainly the part that forces company to make their firing equal. Which forces empolyers to fire people base on what they did wrong, not on their skin color. That part I like. However the hiring part I don't like. Let's say you got a white guy, black guy, hispanic guy and asian guy. There's two spot open. Who do you think is going to get hired? The black and the hispanic. The asian and white are left out. So far that's not fair. However, let's make the problem more complex. Lets say the white guy and asian guy were highly qualified for the job. However, the black and hispanic were less than qualified. Now we see the problem here. Also, Affirmative Action does create some friction in the work place mainly because the rest of the employees doesn't know if the minorities were hire based on their skills or the fact that they are "tokens". To force private company to hire people base on their skin color is wrong and racist. If I was President I would revoke this law and force company to hire based on the fact if they're qualified or not.

This used to be a country where all a person has to do is stand on his merit and he'll get a good job. Not anymore. Now it's about let's let the minority in first and leave the rest out. Yea, that's fair. :rolleyes:

It's funny, but the Republicans and Conservatives (okay, some of them...but it's a rampantly common meme,) bitch bitch and bitch, saying "Oh, but liberals have no ideas. All they do it criticize!"

Well, tell me this: Since we know, from fairly empirical means, that minorities ARE discriminated against, they DO recieve less pay for the same work and the ARE under-represented in government, how do we fix this state of affairs, other than by affirmative action? Hmmmmmm? Shall we ignore it? Yeah, that'll make it go away. Anyone can do anything if they just put their mind to it, right? A sprinter carrying a 40 lb backpack can win a race if he just tries hard enough, right?

Think about what you're saying for a minute. You're basically conceding the point that being born to a certain demographic (defined by race or gender) is in and of itself, regardless of outside influences a handicap. As a member of a minority (I'm handicapped, in a wheelchair), I think this is a demeaning attitude. Am I saying there should be no anti-discrimination laws? Of course not. If someone can show that they were passed over for a job or promotion because of some demographic they fall into, the employer should have hell rain down upon them. But tell me the ethical difference between these two things:

1) Hiring someone because they're white/male/able-bodied.
2) Hiring someone because they're black/female/handicapped.

If discrimination on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity or handicap is illegal, then it's illegal. It doesn't matter if you're doing it for a good cause, and it doesn't matter if the person you end up hiring is qualified for the job. What matters is you made your hiring decision based upon a foolish criteria that's worse than flipping a coin. At least flipping a coin doesn't have a moral component.

Would the people defending affirmative action be willing to stand such policies in recruiting athletes and such?

After all, whites and Asians are underrepresented in the NBA...

Sure, I wouldn't mind. Then again, I suspect that whites and Asians are underrepresented among those qualified to compete in the NBA, so it's not really the same issue, is it?

Here's an idea: How about if on job and college applications, the ethnicity box is just removed completely? Now there's total fairness.

See my post, above, on experiments using "black-sounding" and "white-sounding" names on job applications.

"Advantage" implies competition. But the competitive part of getting a job is the part that gets one into the qualified applicant pool. Within that pool, applicants are not "competing" with one another anyway, since decisions are necessarily based on things other than their qualifications.


Hogwash. You compete for a job every step of the way, more fiercely after you get into the qualified applicant pool than before. Two people might both have the base skills to do a job (landing them in the qualified applicant pool), but from there the competition goes to the "value-added" aspects of their qualifications (e.g., relevant project experience, going to a more competitive school, having more years of experience in a field, etc.). Two people going for the same position are rarely, if ever, equal in that way, and thus are in competition until one of them lands the job.

Hogwash. You compete for a job every step of the way, more fiercely after you get into the qualified applicant pool than before. Two people might both have the base skills to do a job (landing them in the qualified applicant pool), but from there the competition goes to the "value-added" aspects of their qualifications (e.g., relevant project experience, going to a more competitive school, having more years of experience in a field, etc.). Two people going for the same position are rarely, if ever, equal in that way, and thus are in competition until one of them lands the job.

And yet, employers and schools still seem to think that "diversity" is "value-added," whatever you may think about the matter... weird.

welcome to a nation where everyone stands on their own merits, no slaves and no royalty, but some people will be propped up taller than you regardless of merit...

if a company switches to internet based hiring to avoid even the slightest appearance of discrimination and hires via resume and email interview they have done well, treating everyone equally.

but wait - some are more equal, and if through your blind process of selecting the most capable applicants you did not hire the minimum percentage of people with certain characteristics out of anyone's control, irrelevant to the task, and which you specifically avoiding taking into consideration because that would be discrimination, if they are able or not, you will pay out your ass.

the american dream has been paid for in lives prior to your own, hold it dear, and work hard in this land of opportunity where all men are created equal... unless your parents were of certain ethnic backgrounds, in which case you can help me fill my quota to avoid be butt-raped by a gang of lawyers.

1) Cat-Tribe pointed out that quotas are illigal. Learn just a little bit about what you are talking about, and stop being so damn condisending when you are the one who is spoutting shit.

Land of oppertunity my ass. The fact of the matter is, you're parents were of a certain ethnic background, you are much morely likely to be born into poverty, shitty schools, and very little oppuntunity to better your situation. So shut your patriotic mouth. And yes, I use patriotic as an insult.

If you think the white man is discriminated against in this nation, you haven't looked closely at who runs our courts, our corporations, legislature and who every single one of our Presidents are. Boo-frickin hoo. The fact is that EVEN WITH affirmative action, the white man (and I am one,) still wields inordinate wealth, influence and power in this country.

So excuse me if I don't weep for you.

Spot on!


It's funny, but the Republicans and Conservatives (okay, some of them...but it's a rampantly common meme,) bitch bitch and bitch, saying "Oh, but liberals have no ideas. All they do it criticize!"

Well, tell me this: Since we know, from fairly empirical means, that minorities ARE discriminated against, they DO recieve less pay for the same work and the ARE under-represented in government, how do we fix this state of affairs, other than by affirmative action? Hmmmmmm? Shall we ignore it? Yeah, that'll make it go away. Anyone can do anything if they just put their mind to it, right? A sprinter carrying a 40 lb backpack can win a race if he just tries hard enough, right?

Affirmative action (as are all actions began by man,) is imperfect, but it does indeed help. If you want a better solution, be original and think of one.

Liking you more and more.

Racist horseshit. Grow up, you little shit.

Sounds like you're the one that needs to grow up.


Lets say the white guy and asian guy were highly qualified for the job. However, the black and hispanic were less than qualified. Now we see the problem here.

Read the OP. The qualified guys would get the job.

With all of this talk about "unqualified" minority applicants displacing "qualified" non-minority applicants...

Where do you think all of these "qualified" applicants are going who don't get into Ivy League schools because of Affirmative Action? And if taking applicants according to Affirmative Action rules is such a threat to the viability of private enterprise--as opponents claim--then how have these schools managed to survive their attempts to generate diversity?

:confused:

Whether this ever was the case is debatable.

It definitely is not how the EEOC or Department of Labor work now.

Their regulations expressly forbid quotas -- de facto or otherwise -- and even forbid goals that aren't narrowly tailored to the relevant pool of qualified applicants.
It's not "debatable" at all. It's how they worked. I know. I was a personnel manager with first GE and then Exxon. When I worked with GE, they sent us a set of interrogatories that would have comprised several books, some of which were difficult in the extreme to answer.

... how have these schools managed to survive their attempts to generate diversity?
Uh ... trust funds? ;)

And I'm talking about realizing that something is rotten in the state of Denmark, if one is bothers to actually be aware of the economic and representative disparities between the races. Awareness, not judging.

I didn't say that diparities didn't exist, I said no one has successfully made the case that they constitute a problem. The only way they could be construed as a problem is if one's thinking is centred on race.

All I said is that it's curious that every single one of our Presidents have been white, non-Jewish Males.

And that is a problem for what reason?

Systematic racism does likewise.

Whoop-de-doo, you've not proven it exists still.

Even with AA, white makes get more than their fair share.

Who gave you the right to determine what is a fair share?

The premise of the arguments that there is no discrimination or underrepresentation that needs to be addressed is easily refuted. I thought no one would be so naive as to take such a position.

For someone who whinges about "misunderstanding" you certainly do a lot of it.

I shall state it again, for you and those others in the cheap seats:

1) Individual cases of discrimination show only the need to act to compensate the individual victim at the expense of the individual perpetrator. They do not show that general action is necessary.

2) Whether or not underrepresentation exists, no one has made the case that is composes in itself a problem requiring urgent and drastic action. Furthermore, to act, one must proceed from the premise that a particular woman, or black, or asian, or gay can represent his/her group. That is simply not the case, the particular woman, black, asian, or gay represents him/herself only, as an individual.

Here are some (I know practically verboten here) facts:

Your 'facts' leave a lot unexplained. You've not actually shown that any real, irrelevant discrimination exists. Numbers of complaints of discrimination are irrelevant.

Read the first post. The "beneficiaries" of affirmative action are 100% qualified.

Which, if true, moves the argument against it to the area of it being unnecessary, and US taxpayers have to pay the bill for it (worse still, in these days of budget deficits, the children and grandchildren of these taxpayers will be slugged, plus interest)

Thus, if I refuse to hire black people--or refuse to hire them unless they are exceptionally well-qualified and I simply cannot turn them down (or get away with it--I am guilty of invidious discrimination.

Yes you can turn them down, assuming a just legal system. The hiring process is sufficiently vague to make it impossible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that you are in fact discriminating. The only way to get you would be for you to actually say it, or write it down. Of course, reducing the burden of proof for a plaintiff to name it necessary to show a mere disparity makes it much easier. It is made easier still by the vast amounts of bad publicity a trial would bring. This gives a powerful incentive to settle out of court, even though you may have done nothing wrong. Like Deep Kimchi said, it is a shakedown.

However, I am not disenfranchising anyone either. I am simply producing a more diverse workforce, which is a perfectly noble motive.

In the example you lay out, your motives aren't noble, they are racist. You are judging the candidates on race. Since it is your company (or the owners have allowed you as manager), my opinion on the practice is irrelevant. The only diversity that counts is in the mind, diversity of knowledge, ideas, and experience.

One point. If you propose, through affirmative action, to ameliorate previous grievances

The problem is how "previous grievances" are defined, and how victim and culprit are defined.

Provided it was only done in terms of living indvidual victims, with action against either living culprits, or their estates, it would be fine. The problem is that any action against a black by any white at any time is used to give benefits to another black who is unrelated to the first black, and who may not have lived within his life time, with perhaps centuries of separation.

This argument rests on a "natural right" theory of property that, while it still makes for some great rhetorical flourishes, has been effectively dead politically at least since West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937) when the Supreme Court gave "fresh consideration" to the question of state police powers and finally permitted a minimum wage on the grounds that "workers... in an unequal position with respect to bargaining power" were "exploited" by their employers and "relatively defenceless against the denial of a living wage."

An appeal to authority. Roosevelt's Supreme Court is hardly an authority on property rights.

Not at all. There is quite a bit of Supreme Court doctrine directed toward this very issue; the doctrine you claim would not get past the critical glare of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Congress and the States are allowed to infringe on contractual relations only when a valid legislative purpose is served.

Racism is not a valid legislative purpose, and it is, in a moral sense, stealing.

More than likely, as Affirmative Action improves the numbers of minorities in employment, white people will get to know them and learn that they are, in fact, qualified.

Nice theory. It doesn't happen that way. Once you give a certain group a hand up that others don't get, you must create more prejudice.

Accusing me of not getting it doesn't help your argument.

They've tried this. It failed miserably.

No, they haven't. Race relations in the US have only ever been characterised by the use of force by the state, or by the state allowing private citizens to use force (which basically comes to the same thing). No one has tried an approached based on non-violence, respect for rights, and voluntary, mutual consent.

Why should private employers have this right, but not the public? Why should the public not do what it likes with its property, through its executive arm--the government?

Equal protection before the law.

No, it's really not.

If they are equally qualified, then I can make my decision based on my other goals (besides hiring a qualified individual).

Thus, moral (and legal) evaluations at this point apply to those goals.

Goal #1: To promote diversity. This is a valid goal, as it does not discriminate against any group. You are willing to hire white people--indeed, most of your employees are probably white. But you also want more black people, because you value diversity--a fine value indeed.

Goal #2: To keep this place white. This is not a valid goal, since it discriminates against non-white groups. You hire white people, and you are not willing to hire black people (unless, perhaps, you absolutely have to).

Either way you cut it, one applicant does not get the job. Moreover, no matter what you decide, the reason that this person does not get the job is not "fair" to her/him. It is not fair that I am not hired because I am white, and my competitor happens to be black; and it is equally unfair that I should not be hired because I didn't join the right fraternity, or because my Dad doesn't know the right people, or I don't belong to the right clubs, etc. etc.

Fairness is not the issue. Fairness has been satisfied, as far as it can be, in the fact that the person who gets the job is qualified (and, in your example, as qualified as I am).

The crime is not being unfair. Hiring decisions are almost always unfair: someone gets hired for reasons other than her/his qualifications precisely because he/she is chosen from a pool of qualified applicants..

When you have a pool of qualified applicants, the final decision is necessarily something other than qualifications. Thus, the motivation of that decision matters.

You're being racist either way. If the candidates are equally qualified, it would be a noble goal to look at them in terms of their potential, or put them both on probation for a time, deciding after the time who gets the permanent spot. Of course, both candidates will be different in personality, and aspirations.

If qualified white players were being turned away from the NBA, then yeah, I'd support it. That's not the case. In fact, since the majority of coaches and GM's in sports are white, I'd say that sports still have a problem with discrimination.

Gymoor II, this is the basic problem with all of your arguments. You count heads, and if the count is not to your liking, you shreik "discrimination". You have made, and as far as I can see, have no intention of making, any examination into what is really going on.

And yet, employers and schools still seem to think that "diversity" is "value-added," whatever you may think about the matter... weird.

Do they really think that, or are they simply trying to aviod bad publicity, and law suits. These are more likely than some seachange in the thinking.

I hope they implement Affirmative Action in school grading systems too.

I didn't say that diparities didn't exist, I said no one has successfully made the case that they constitute a problem.

Define "successfully" then, since clearly your definition is at odds with the established opinion of political scientists and sociologists, not to mention a majority of our government's legislators and judges.

The only way they could be construed as a problem is if one's thinking is centred on race.

And why shouldn't it be, when there are racial problems?

1) Individual cases of discrimination show only the need to act to compensate the individual victim at the expense of the individual perpetrator. They do not show that general action is necessary.

That is a legalistic mindset more appropriate to a judge than a legislator (who actually reads the studies demonstrating a general problem). It should be especially telling, then, that even judges in the modern era have recognized the legitimate state interest in general Affirmative Action programs.

2) Furthermore, to act, one must proceed from the premise that a particular woman, or black, or asian, or gay can represent his/her group.

Why? I have already argued that being exposed to sufficient numbers of qualified minorities can make non-minorities more accepting of them. Since this is the goal of Affirmative Action--to bring qualified minorities into non-minority dominated schools and work-places--I don't see how it requires a theory of "representation" at all. You keep trying to inject it, but it just isn't there.

An appeal to authority. Roosevelt's Supreme Court is hardly an authority on property rights.

I was not appealing to the Court to demonstrate the flaws in the argument. I was merely pointing out, historically, the last time that the disputed theory of property actually had bite. Now, whatever bark remains (and its advocates do love to bark), it just does not square with the realities of the modern world.

Nice theory. It doesn't happen that way. Once you give a certain group a hand up that others don't get, you must create more prejudice.

Why? I work with more than one African American who is, almost beyond the shadow of a doubt, the beneficiary of Affirmative Action. (I can say this with some certainty because I am in a department with a very large number of applications every year, and a very large number of qualified applicants, but very very few positions. Thus, for African Americans to creep in every year without some "preference" would be a severe statistical anomaly.) Nevertheless, no one else in my department seems very prejudiced toward them. Indeed, I think working with them has, in fact, tended to whittle away prejudices and areas of discomfort with blacks.

Why? Because, in working with them, we respect them for the work that they do.

If you, or your imaginary people, are not willing to judge people on the work that they do, but insist that they "must" have be "tokens," then you are the ones who are prejudiced--and not through any fault of Affirmative Action.

Accusing me of not getting it doesn't help your argument.

Did I do that? I don't think so. But, to put the record straight (and not for the sake of the argument): You don't get it. ;)

No, they haven't. Race relations in the US have only ever been characterised by the use of force by the state, or by the state allowing private citizens to use force (which basically comes to the same thing). No one has tried an approached based on non-violence, respect for rights, and voluntary, mutual consent.

What "force" is used by Affirmative Action? When Harvard decides that they'd like a few more blacks than they'd otherwise admit, who is the victim of "force"?

Equal protection before the law.

That does not answer the question.

You're being racist either way.

I don't think you know what "racist" means.

If the candidates are equally qualified, it would be a noble goal to look at them in terms of their potential, or put them both on probation for a time, deciding after the time who gets the permanent spot.

You don't want to allow employers to make the decision that they think is best for their team, so you would force them to undergo expensive and rigorous testing to attempt to make a few points difference between two equally qualified candidates? Now that robs them of property!!

Do they really think that, or are they simply trying to aviod bad publicity, and law suits. These are more likely than some seachange in the thinking.

The trend has been toward litigation by white applicants challenging Affirmative Action policies... so it's unclear how adopting Affirmative Action allows them to avoid lawsuits.

I hope they implement Affirmative Action in school grading systems too.

Don't be too surprised if some of your professors already do.

As a college instructor, I have to admit that it is hard to be "fair" when you have an African American woman who works as a paralegal to put herself through school... and for that reason tends to be a bit late for her evening class because the lawyers insist on keeping her late... who is clearly an intelligent woman, but who is equally clearly afraid to raise her voice in class--which hurts her participation grade, which has already dropped because of her lateness--...

... and meanwhile you have arrogant white kids, one of whom drives a BMW that her parents bought her and likes to interrupt class for inane comments; and most of whom believe that there is nothing you can teach them about life that they don't already know...

... compound this with the overt racism of some of these kids--evident in their attitude toward the only black author you have them read that term--and you begin to understand why this black girl is afraid to raise her hand in class.

When you're discussing politics and society, it might be natural for her to tell you about her perspective... indeed, you desperately want her to... but she doesn't, because any one of these kids would try to slam her opinion: they have made that abundantly clear.

When, as far as points go, she winds up with a 'B' in the class, it's easy to want to "bump her up." Because she's black? Or because she has to work? Or because she's shy? Hard to say... I don't isolate her blackness from the rest of her characteristics.

But I do know she had it harder than any of the white kids in that class.

I don't think you know what "racist" means.

that's more charitable than what i would assume - namely that they are actively engaging in a project of willful equivocation and distortion of language for nakedly political reasons, as they also do for a number of related words too.

Define "successfully" then, since clearly your definition is at odds with the established opinion of political scientists and sociologists, not to mention a majority of our government's legislators and judges.

There is no definition of success in current use, except activity. Affirmative action is supposed to change intangibles, therefore success cannot be defined as anything except activity.

And why shouldn't it be, when there are racial problems?

It demeans the individual. It reduces him to a racial characterisation. It gives an excuse for failure, or a curse for success.

I have already argued that being exposed to sufficient numbers of qualified minorities can make non-minorities more accepting of them.

You're not talking about voluntary exposure, you're talking about forcing people on each other by giving "favoured" groups an advantage others have no access to.

What "force" is used by Affirmative Action?

You mean that government action, judicial action, and legislation aren't force?

You ought to stop now.

That does not answer the question.

Yes it does. Government's don't have the same property rights as ordinary people. They are required to refrain from discrimination.

You don't want to allow employers to make the decision that they think is best for their team, so you would force them to undergo expensive and rigorous testing to attempt to make a few points difference between two equally qualified candidates? Now that robs them of property!!

Don't lump me in with people like you. I force nothing. It is one of trhe things I might do. You wish to force people to make decisions based on race.

I hope they implement Affirmative Action in school grading systems too.

Why? Should grades not reflect the quality of the assessment work. That a particular student may have problems is his concern only. It is not an excuse for failure, nor does it justify giving them an advantage.

... compound this with the overt racism of some of these kids--evident in their attitude toward the only black author you have them read that term--and you begin to understand why this black girl is afraid to raise her hand in class.

This is exactly the sort of thing I am talking about. You have done nothing to show that a particular attitude towards an author is related to anything except the quality of his work. Why can someone not dislike the work of a black author? Must I like his work because he is black.

You do not even acknowledge the possibility of a legitimate difference of opinion. His work may well be fascinating to you, but to them it may be as boring as your posts. I don't know, and you are determined not to say.

Do they even know the author is black? Is his picture on the inside cover, or on the back? Do you bring up the author's race every five minutes so you can call your student's racists?

You have not shown that this black lady's reluctance to speak in class stems from race, she may be shy, she may not understand the material to the extent necessary to make points. You are using this lady's race as an excuse for her not participating. What you are effectively saying to her is "Don't try, don't work, don't participate, you don't need to, you're black, you pass through". Perhaps this lady doesn't like being patronised by you, and would prefer a space in which she is treated as a distinct individual.

her lateness

Might she have a blase attitude towards your class, preferring to concentrate on other things?

Your concentration on race to the exclusion of all else is symtomatic of the intellectual sloth so prevalent in the affirmative action movement.

Were I to take what you said at face value, I could boil it down to "She's black, therefore she has an excuse for failure"

that's more charitable than what i would assume - namely that they are actively engaging in a project of willful equivocation and distortion of language for nakedly political reasons, as they also do for a number of related words too.

Well, to be honest I think it's more than that.

I think a few very intelligent people engage in a project of willful equivocation and distortion of language for nakedly political reasons.

Most others just find an ideology they like and spit it out at anyone who will listen.

There is no definition of success in current use, except activity. Affirmative action is supposed to change intangibles, therefore success cannot be defined as anything except activity.

That's utter gibberish. Your challenge was that no one has "successfully" shown that racial discrimination, underrepresentation of minorities, and racism more generally are "problems." I remarked that your definition must be different than that of... well, virtually every professional who studies such things. What "activity" has to do with any of this is beyond me.

It demeans the individual. It reduces him to a racial characterisation. It gives an excuse for failure, or a curse for success.

No, you choose to perceive it that way. Recognizing reality for what it is can never demean the individual. Pretending that minorities' complaints are not "real"--that they should "ignore race", which plays such a dramatic role in their lives--that is unspeakably demeaning. It treats them as people whose opinions and perspective do not count.

You're not talking about voluntary exposure, you're talking about forcing people on each other by giving "favoured" groups an advantage others have no access to.

First of all, leaving things to perfectly "voluntary" exposure would have meant never ending "separate but equal." Whites never wanted to go to school with blacks, or eat with them, or anything else. We made them, however, and to the betterment of all.

You mean that government action, judicial action, and legislation aren't force?

You ought to stop now.

You must be confused. Most Affirmative Action programs are perfectly voluntary--certainly the ones that give active preferment in hiring and admissions. So again, who is being forced to do what? The "judicial actions" all seem to be forcing employers to end Affirmative Action programs, not to begin them.

Yes it does. Government's don't have the same property rights as ordinary people.

Last I checked, ours was a government of ordinary people. "We the people" own everything that is the United States. The acting government is merely our executor. So I believe we can do at least as much with our property as any individual can with his.

Don't lump me in with people like you. I force nothing. It is one of trhe things I might do. You wish to force people to make decisions based on race.

You wish to force them not to. "I force nothing." Ha!! You do not even have the slightest respect for democratic law.

Why? Should grades not reflect the quality of the assessment work. That a particular student may have problems is his concern only. It is not an excuse for failure, nor does it justify giving them an advantage.

That sounds good on paper, but you would never make it as a teacher. I would never fail a student who gives an honest effort. (By the same token, I would never give an 'A' to a student who does not deserve it.)

This is exactly the sort of thing I am talking about. You have done nothing to show that a particular attitude towards an author is related to anything except the quality of his work. Why can someone not dislike the work of a black author? Must I like his work because he is black.

In this case, my students as much as said so.

Do they even know the author is black? Is his picture on the inside cover, or on the back? Do you bring up the author's race every five minutes so you can call your student's racists?

It was an autobiographical work by a black woman from Antigua. You do the math.

You have not shown that this black lady's reluctance to speak in class stems from race, she may be shy, she may not understand the material to the extent necessary to make points.

I never claimed I did "show" it. Indeed, it may not have been. I merely described a sum total of factors adding to my opinion of her.

You are using this lady's race as an excuse for her not participating.

Not an excuse--an explanation. I still think she should have spoken up more, especially to contradict the racist things her classmates were saying. I understand, however, why she may not have. Understanding and justification are two very different things. But, you do so love to mangle concepts together.

What you are effectively saying to her is "Don't try, don't work, don't participate, you don't need to, you're black, you pass through".

When did I say that to her? I never said any such thing. She earned a solid 'B' in the class.

Might she have a blase attitude towards your class, preferring to concentrate on other things?

Actually, I had good reason to believe that she was legitimately late due to work... and that her lawyer bosses, like most lawyer bosses I have known, had no regard for her need to get to her classes.

After she had been late several times (which affects participation), and she had missed a few classes (which radically affects participation), I offered her a "deal": I told her that I knew she was doing her best to get to class, but that I could not condone her absences. What I would do, however, would be to "forgive" her points lost for lateness if she could just manage not to miss a single class for the rest of the semester.

Far from finding this "patronizing", she actually rose to the challenge... in fact, from then on she was hardly ever late. So, ironically, when I gave her a "pass" on latenesses, treating her as a responsible individual with difficult demands, she actually exceeded my expectations. Perhaps she was grateful for being given a break (for a change).

Your concentration on race to the exclusion of all else is symtomatic of the intellectual sloth so prevalent in the affirmative action movement.

Your refusal to read the parts where I emphasize everything other than race is symptomatic of the obtuse intellectual pigheadedness of its opponents.

Were I to take what you said at face value, I could boil it down to "She's black, therefore she has an excuse for failure"

I said nothing of the sort... although if I were to say something comparable, it would be more like, "She's black, therefore her accomplishments are that much more impressive."

For the record, after adjusting for the tardiness I had promised to forgive, she earned a 'B+' in the class.

I find it unbelievably amusing that someone can say to the victims of racism, who struggle to get ahead in the world:

"Don't blame racism for your problems. That demeans you. Your difficulties are all your fault."

There is nothing more demeaning than to deny the reality of the situation, thereby blaming innocent people for circumstances that are not, in fact, their fault.

Your challenge was that no one has "successfully" shown that racial discrimination, underrepresentation of minorities, and racism more generally are "problems." I remarked that your definition must be different than that of... well, virtually every professional who studies such things. What "activity" has to do with any of this is beyond me.

Whether or not "underrepresentation" exists is not at issue. What is at issue is whether or not the existance of "underrepresentation" does itself constitute a problem, or is it merely there.

Activity has a great deal to do with this.

Recognizing reality for what it is can never demean the individual.

You're not recognising reality, you're excusing it on the grounds of race.

Most Affirmative Action programs are perfectly voluntary

Where anti-discrimination laws exist, that is certainly not the case.

First of all, leaving things to perfectly "voluntary" exposure would have meant never ending "separate but equal." Whites never wanted to go to school with blacks, or eat with them, or anything else. We made them, however, and to the betterment of all.

Firstly, affairs were never at that stage, it was either forcing racism, or forcing anti-racism.

Claiming the betterment of all is the standard excuse for tyranny.

You wish to force them not to. "I force nothing." Ha!! You do not even have the slightest respect for democratic law.

No, I don't. They may make their decisions based on what they like. The only point of affirmative action is to force people to consider race. You obviously haven't been reading my posts.

That sounds good on paper, but you would never make it as a teacher. I would never fail a student who gives an honest effort. (By the same token, I would never give an 'A' to a student who does not deserve it.)

I did make it.

Keep your personal suppositions to yourself. It always helped me in the classroom.

In this case, my students as much as said so.

Weasel words do not an argument make. You won't even allow for someone having a non-race based thought.

I merely described a sum total of factors adding to my opinion of her.

You who look at everything as a question of race?

Not an excuse--an explanation.

You're dissembling. That the other kiddies may not play nice isn't an explaination.

Your refusal to read the parts where I emphasize everything other than race is symptomatic of the obtuse intellectual pigheadedness of its opponents.

"I know you are, I said you are, so what am I?" in other words.

I said nothing of the sort... although if I were to say something comparable, it would be more like, "She's black, therefore her accomplishments are that much more impressive."

Which is just as paternalistic, and racist as saying "She's black, therefore she has an excuse for failure"

Her accomplishments standing by themselves are valuable, and impressive.

There is nothing more demeaning than to deny the reality of the situation, thereby blaming innocent people for circumstances that are not, in fact, their fault.

We have nothing except your personal prejudice to indicate that racism is a significant factor in this lady's problems. The only firm thing I can see that has caused her problems is her bosses. I don't see that racist statements from her classmates as the cause. Ordinarily, someone who is mature should be able to disregard that, "sticks and stones" etc.

I don't see any good reason to bring up race at all. Rather than pontificating about race, you could help to build her confidence, be a mentor. Its seen me alright.

If you are always looking for racism, you will always find it, whether or not it is there.

And yet, employers and schools still seem to think that "diversity" is "value-added," whatever you may think about the matter... weird.

What's weird about it? Society at large puts diversity at a premium, regardless of whether it actually benefits a company or not. And by the way, I'm not saying diversity isn't beneficial. What I was questioning in that passage was your contention that somehow all applicants were equally qualified, based on the fact that they made it into the "qualified pool" -- for lack of a better phrase.

Whether or not "underrepresentation" exists is not at issue. What is at issue is whether or not the existance of "underrepresentation" does itself constitute a problem, or is it merely there.

And, although you refuse to recognize the fact, the consensus opinion within both the scientific community and the majority of social policy-makers, is that it is a problem. It is not just merely "there."

If you want to believe otherwise, you will have a great deal of educated expert opinion against you.

Activity has a great deal to do with this.

What "activity"? Please, clarify your meaning. I genuinely don't know what you mean by this.

You're not recognising reality, you're excusing it on the grounds of race.

Saying so doesn't make it true.

Where anti-discrimination laws exist, that is certainly not the case.

Why don't you tell me which laws, specifically, concern you. And I won't be satisfied with "the ones that..." I want to know the actual laws.

Firstly, affairs were never at that stage, it was either forcing racism, or forcing anti-racism.

Fine. So, it's "force" either way. No more silly claims of "you force and I don't". Let's just agree that we all think government is going to exist and do something about something, and that force will have something to do with it.

Claiming the betterment of all is the standard excuse for tyranny.

Claiming the betterment of all is the only reason for government to do anything. So what's your point?

Edit: Your fallacy is this. You are trying to draw a comparison based on something that X does, omitting that X is a Y and all Y's do the same thing. That is, tyrannies are governments. All governments claim the "betterment of all" as a justification for their actions, but not all governments are tyrannies.

It's like accusing me of being a tyrant for eating when I'm hungry, and claiming that "being hungry is the standard reason that tyrants eat!"

No, I don't. They may make their decisions based on what they like.

And if they "like" to make their decisions based on race? What then?

Weasel words do not an argument make. You won't even allow for someone having a non-race based thought.

Practice what you preach. You won't even allow for me to allow for someone having a non-race based thought.

You who look at everything as a question of race?

Leave your suppositions to yourself. Nothing I've said corroborates that claim.

You're dissembling. That the other kiddies may not play nice isn't an explaination.

Of course it is. Or do you really pretend to know nothing about ordinary human motivations?

"I know you are, I said you are, so what am I?" in other words.

Yes, exactly. At least now we've established the level of discourse at which you actually understand what I'm saying.

Which is just as paternalistic, and racist as saying "She's black, therefore she has an excuse for failure"

No. It's just honest. Nothing about the term "equality" says "ignore reality."

Her accomplishments standing by themselves are valuable, and impressive.

Yes, they certainly are. But, given that I have every reason to believe she faced greater challenges than many of her peers, her accomplishments are to that degree more impressive. That's just being authentic to reality.

We have nothing except your personal prejudice to indicate that racism is a significant factor in this lady's problems.

No, as I have tried (unsuccessfully) to intimate to you, we have a number of observations taken over a period of close contact with her. Being a victim of racism, like any other kind of victimization, comes with "symptoms" that a sensitive and educated person can recognize.

I have had other black students who possessed no such visible scars. Their backgrounds may have been different, or their parents may have been better at defending them from the effects of racism... or, maybe they were just born with an innately more robust constitution. At any rate, I never believed that racism was a significant factor in what problems they may have had. It is not "prejudice" that leads me to believe that racism is, however, an important factor in the lives of many blacks; it is experience.

The only firm thing I can see that has caused her problems is her bosses.

They certainly contributed!

I don't see that racist statements from her classmates as the cause.

Of course not. But, you were not there. More importantly, you choose not to see racism as the cause of anything--except, of course, Affirmative Action and its horrible oppression of the white man.

Ordinarily, someone who is mature should be able to disregard that, "sticks and stones" etc.

That is a prejudice, and a demeaning one. Racism is worse than "sticks and stones", especially when one has to deal with it one's entire life. Again, you ignore reality--and again, it is a reality established by a wealth of social science research, including rigorous experimentation.

I don't see any good reason to bring up race at all. Rather than pontificating about race, you could help to build her confidence, be a mentor.

Why can't I do both? Why are the two mutually exclusive, for you?

If you are always looking for racism, you will always find it, whether or not it is there.

Factually untrue. I am always on guard against racism, yet I do not always find it. If I always found it, I would have no way to fight it, because I would have no way to distinguish between racism and the racially-aware policies that combat it.

Ironically, that seems to be the position into which you have stuck yourself... At any mention of "race" you see "racism"... which leaves you with utterly no means with which to fight actual racism. So your only choice is to ignore it.

You either see "no" racism: look at the individual, race has nothing to do with her failures; racism does not exist....

... Or, you see "only" racism: white people who worry about African American whites are racist; black people who complain about injustice are racist; indeed, everyone who uses the terms "white", "black", or "race" is... racist. (Oddly enough, the white person who complains that he "must" have been disenfranchised because of his race never seems to be racist in your analysis... just everyone else who thinks about race...


It seems that when you claim I "only see race" you are projecting onto my position some perverted version of your own.

What's weird about it? Society at large puts diversity at a premium, regardless of whether it actually benefits a company or not. And by the way, I'm not saying diversity isn't beneficial. What I was questioning in that passage was your contention that somehow all applicants were equally qualified, based on the fact that they made it into the "qualified pool" -- for lack of a better phrase.

Well, "qualified pool" means essentially that: everyone in it meets the qualifications for the job. To call any of them "unqualified" is blatantly disingenuous.

However, to call them "equally qualified" is somewhat problematic. I will endeavor to clarify my position.

Let's consider, for the sake of argument, admissions to a university.

Ordinarily, as a first stage in the admissions process, universities establish certain "minimum" requirements for admission--minimum GPA and SAT. (Since students may have high GPAs but low SATs, or vice versa, universities usually simplify by first assigning "scores" to each, then ranking students according to the total score.) These can be somewhat flexible, as admissions officers may be asked to review an application with a particularly eloquent essay or fantastic recommendations which does not otherwise meet the standards... but essentially, there is some established minimum qualifications.

The students who meet these qualifications form the pool of "qualified applicants." According to the experience and best estimates of admissions personnel, they should all be able to succeed in the university's course work.

Of course, some students may be exceptionally well qualified. Let's say these students have straight-A's and score over 1550 on their SATs, with good recommendations and essays. The University may distinguish these students by setting a high standard for "automatic" admission. At this phase, considerations other than "pure" merit usually do not enter into the calculation.

These students, naturally, do not fill every available seat for admission. There remain a large number of unfilled positions... and of course a larger number of fully qualified applicants.

Now, these applicants have a variety of scores, grades, and other qualifications. Some may stand out, on paper, from others. However, from experience and scientific study, admissions personnel know that these differences don't "mean" anything, statistically. Each applicant in this pool, despite their many differences, is equally likely to succeed at the university as every other applicant. While certainly not true in fact, it is true as far as the admissions officer can tell.

Thus, from the perspective of the admissions officer, they are all "equally qualified."

Now, the admissions office could, in theory, simply go down the list of admissions scores and take the highest-scoring applicants until there are no more seats left to fill. This seems like it respects merit-based competition, but as the officer knows, that appearance is misleading: everything he knows about admissions tells him that this method of selection would be about as good as assigning seats by lottery.

In some ways, one may be satisfied that such a method (either score or lottery) satisfies a standard of "fairness." Indeed, it may... although it is not clear that the rejected applicants would feel like they had been treated fairly after a roll of the dice decided their fate... any more than they feel treated fairly when their poor standardized test scores fail to reflect their real potential, or a GPA fails to reflect the disciplined comeback they made in their senior year.

"Fairness," in fact, may be an impossible standard even in theory. But if that is the case, any standard that claims to be "fair" is illegimate, because it is really as arbitrary as any other.

Moreover, admissions personnel have other obligations. They want to get an incoming class with an "appropriate" number of probable mathematics majors, English majors, artists, jocks, etc. etc. Keep in mind that this is NOT a measure of merit... If I have higher test scores than every artist in the pool, but I want to be a mathematician and too many mathematicians applied that year... then I may not get in, despite my performance. It certainly won't feel fair to the individual, anyway.

This is just one consideration. Schools also try for geographic diversity and other factors. Additionally, they may like to encourage racial and ethnic diversity.

It remains my contention that this goal is essentially no different than any of the others, and just as independent of considerations of merit as long as it occurs within a qualified applicant pool.

EDIT: To be clear, this is not supposed to represent any particular Affirmative Action policy. They vary widely; what this represents is an attempt to summarize common features of a legitimate policy.

And, although you refuse to recognize the fact, the consensus opinion within both the scientific community and the majority of social policy-makers, is that it is a problem. It is not just merely "there."

If you want to believe otherwise, you will have a great deal of educated expert opinion against you.

Balderdash.

What "activity"? Please, clarify your meaning. I genuinely don't know what you mean by this.

Lawyers, lobbyists, activists, consultants on introducing it. Usually the groups favoured by affirmative action are no better off (university admissions of minorities are up, but the same is not seen in graduation, the "disparities" still exist after 4 decades), some groups (African-American's particularly) are worse off ... with the exception of those I mentioned above, lawyers, lobbyists, activists, and consultants. They've raked in the dough, it is a multi-billion dollar industry. That is why affirmative action survives, not because it is necessary, but because it is big business. It is in this sense, and only this sense that affirmative action can be seen as successful.

We can see instances of shakedowns to prevent anti-discrimination lawsuits, such as the Texaco case (who settled out of court by offering its black employees $140m, increasing black employees from 9% to 13%, and dealing with more non-white owned suppliers and financial institutions)

Claiming the betterment of all is the only reason for government to do anything. So what's your point?

It is not an argument one can use to support a particular policy.

No. It's just honest. Nothing about the term "equality" says "ignore reality."

Since you have made no effort to establish that what you say is indeed true, what you are saying is a non-sequitor.

But, given that I have every reason to believe she faced greater challenges than many of her peers, her accomplishments are to that degree more impressive. That's just being authentic to reality.

What has that to do with her being black. Her problems are simply inconsiderate bosses, and inconsiderate classmates (arrogant was the term you used, which seems fair), and to be fair, pretty much everyone has to deal with arseholes. Overcoming it is not so much impressive, as commonplace.

That is a prejudice, and a demeaning one. Racism is worse than "sticks and stones", especially when one has to deal with it one's entire life. Again, you ignore reality--and again, it is a reality established by a wealth of social science research, including rigorous experimentation.

Rubbish. Childish taunts are childish taunts, no matter what the exact taunt is. Also, appeals to authorities (especially such vague authorities) won't get you anywhere.

Factually untrue. I am always on guard against racism, yet I do not always find it. If I always found it, I would have no way to fight it, because I would have no way to distinguish between racism and the racially-aware policies that combat it.

Ironically, that seems to be the position into which you have stuck yourself... At any mention of "race" you see "racism"... which leaves you with utterly no means with which to fight actual racism. So your only choice is to ignore it.

You either see "no" racism: look at the individual, race has nothing to do with her failures; racism does not exist....

... Or, you see "only" racism: white people who worry about African American whites are racist; black people who complain about injustice are racist; indeed, everyone who uses the terms "white", "black", or "race" is... racist. (Oddly enough, the white person who complains that he "must" have been disenfranchised because of his race never seems to be racist in your analysis... just everyone else who thinks about race...

It seems that when you claim I "only see race" you are projecting onto my position some perverted version of your own.

Wow, Sigmund. You made all that up yourself.

You don't seem to have bothered to read anything I've said at all. I shall state it simply, I am for liberty above all else. In association, I am for totally free association, a citizen has the right to associate with anyone he pleases, or not to. The government must, however, apply all laws an policies equally, without regard to such things as race or sex. You are in favour of forcing people to associate, or not to based entirely on your views. I am for private property rights, even if some people use their property in unproductive, or unfashionable ways. You do not. I support free speech, no matter how offensive, and idiotic the result is. You do not.

That makes you no different from the people who drafted the Jim Crow laws. You and they had a vision for society, which you and they believed would make things better, and was truely the right way. Then you and they decided you were entitled to force it on everyone else. The latter is where you and I truely differ.

I find no valid reason to treat people differently based on race. However, this is not the real point of this debate, it is not the fundamental issue. The fundamental issue is the place of government force. You have not given any real backing for your contention that it has a place in forging a particular view of society.

The practice of granting favourable treatment to correct races, and gender I question on merit. If it is the government doing it (or any institution that is funded by government), then it is not legitimate. If it is a private citizen, exercising his control over what is his alone, then its legitimacy cannot be questioned.

You've not shown a single instance of someone being discriminated against on racial grounds. You've shown inconsiderate bosses, and immature classmates who make childish taunts.

You are on guard against uncharitable attitudes, and cannot see whether or not real discrimination has occurred. You might have a case if you could prove that her bosses keep her at the office specifically because she is black.

No one on this thread has actually shown an example of real, contemporary discrimination, you've come closest with childish insults. Even if you had, neither you nor anyone else has shown thar affirmative action can solve the problem, or that it can be done without creating all sorts of unintended negative consequences.

Malaysia's affirmative action for Malays (business in Malaysia is dominated by Chinese) is over 30 years old, yet has not resulted in getting more Malays to be more successful, according to former PM Mohammad, it has created a "sense of entitlement" in the Malays.

In some cases, the abandonment of affirmative action has had no measurable effect, or a negligable measurable effect (percentages of admissions is a measurable effect). Whether or not this shows affirmative action's success, failure, or lack effect is debateable. What it does show is that its time (if it ever had a time) is passing. Of course, there are those who will disagree, and they will have an affirmative action industry worth billions of dollars (all of which could have gone to productive activity) backing them.

As to your claim that there is no backlash from affirmative action (i.e. people seeing those of the AA favoured groups employed as being undeserving of their position), "I recently got a large chunk of government funding in a program that didn't even have any sort of affirmative action ranking. Yet, almost all men I talk to including my father, assume there was at least some component of consideration given to me for being female" (When an Advantage is Not an Advantage)

With affirmative action, a white man can blame any failure to advance on affirmative action.

The individuals are equal, and equally qualified: it is that fact, and that fact alone, that makes considerations beyond the individual admissible to decisions between individuals.

The fact of the matter is that, whatever formal (or actual) equality adheres to individuals, groups are not treated equally. Once considerations of individual merit are exhausted, it makes perfect sense to consider matters of social equality.

In what way does it make sense to consider matters of social equality? Businesses should be concerned with making a profit in order to invest that profit in research, development & human resources. As a privately owned business it has no obligation to serve the political and cultural interests of the public at large, at least not by force of law.

Well, then let's also dispose of all taxes and subsidies; let's do away with minimum wages, maximum hours, and health codes; in fact, let's do away with most of our government's commercial legislation since the late nineteenth century, and see where we wind up... ah yes, back in the late nineteenth century, in the midst of open class war and social chaos. That ought to be fun.

Well, I do think we need to get rid of the Income Tax and all subsidies. We should also do away with minimum wages and maximum hours, but health codes are necessary for the protection of the employee against corporate neglagence. A business does not have the right to place people in harms way, just as no private citizen has the right to put other private citizens in harms way. All Corporate Welfare should be ended. Class war is unnecessary and so is social chaos, but if that occurs, the only responsibility of the government is to put down the unrest.



Ahh, good. You'll enjoy the riots.

Not quite.

As long as it doesn't bring them together by... actually bringing them together? That is, after all, what Affirmative Action seeks to do: make sure that all the colors get to play together.

If it were "clearly" unconstitutional, the Supreme Court might be inclined to say so.

Affirmative Action doesn't bring people together, it divides them by treating them differently, by law. I would, if I were you, expect that Affirmative Action will be undone by the Supreme Court within the next five years. We will have a constitutionalist court for the first time since the creation of Affirmative Action. So, if you'd like to arm yourself and prepare your little riots, now would be the time to prepare.

In what way does it make sense to consider matters of social equality? Businesses should be concerned with making a profit in order to invest that profit in research, development & human resources. As a privately owned business it has no obligation to serve the political and cultural interests of the public at large, at least not by force of law.

Using that same logic, then you would also be in favor of abolishing the minimum wage, removing regulations concerning job safety and bringing back child labor.


Well, I do think we need to get rid of the Income Tax and all subsidies. We should also do away with minimum wages and maximum hours, but health codes are necessary for the protection of the employee against corporate neglagence. A business does not have the right to place people in harms way, just as no private citizen has the right to put other private citizens in harms way. All Corporate Welfare should be ended. Class war is unnecessary and so is social chaos, but if that occurs, the only responsibility of the government is to put down the unrest.


Ah, so I was correct. So, you think the government should step down from it's responsibility to promote the common good. With no income tax, then education geoes out the door. So does the military. All those roads you use to go to and from work? Gone.


Affirmative Action doesn't bring people together, it divides them by treating them differently, by law. I would, if I were you, expect that Affirmative Action will be undone by the Supreme Court within the next five years. We will have a constitutionalist court for the first time since the creation of Affirmative Action. So, if you'd like to arm yourself and prepare your little riots, now would be the time to prepare.

That's your opinion only. You like to THINK it divides people, because that's the talking-points you've been taught.

On the other hand, doing nothing has proven to lead to residential, job, and governmental segregation, which leasds to underrepresentation politically and economically, which leads to social dived and, ultimately, unrest and violence.

But hey, keep presenting your opinion as fact while you ignore real history in multiple countries.

Perhaps if you closed your eyes, hopped around on one foot and sang "lalalalalalalalala!" it will also help reinforce your opinion.

No one said anything about a "free ride."
Yes, you did--or rather, you're making some strong suggestions to that effect. By endorsing Affirmative Action, you're subtly suggesting that everyone under the sun has the right to a job: this is not the case. People have the right to earn a job. Jobs shouldn't just be given to people, they should be doled out in accordance with the employer's [once again, not the government's wishes.

More importantly, your argument only makes sense in the world of meaningless abstractions. This is what the Supreme Court realized in the 30s. They had persevered in maintaining abstract definitions as long as they could... that is, until reality invaded to the point that they could not deny that the rights of vested property are, at times, at odds with the rights of the unpropertied. Neither can be absolute if the government is meant to promote the general welfare. Sometimes it has to take sides.
The promotion of the "general welfare" is, unfortunately, one of the flaws in the Constitution, but thankfully it's not as egregious as some of the political codes that had preceded it; if they were going to make a mistake like that I'm glad it was such a relatively small one.

At any rate, universal equality isn't really stressed very heavily in the Consitution's language, it's more interested in the right to life [as I'm defining it] and property. Of course "unpropertied" people won't have the chance to excersize these rights [having little or no property], but that doesn't mean they should get free stuff at my expense if I don't want them to, or that the legal framework doesn't exist to allow them to go out and earn property. Don't give me that hooey about them not being able to do it either: it's patronizing, insulting, and more than a little racist. Anyone can do it.

Ah, so I was correct. So, you think the government should step down from it's responsibility to promote the common good. With no income tax, then education geoes out the door. So does the military. All those roads you use to go to and from work? Gone.

What in the world makes you think that? You are simply making an assumption and a poor assumption at that.



That's your opinion only. You like to THINK it divides people, because that's the talking-points you've been taught.

On the other hand, doing nothing has proven to lead to residential, job, and governmental segregation, which leasds to underrepresentation politically and economically, which leads to social dived and, ultimately, unrest and violence.

But hey, keep presenting your opinion as fact while you ignore real history in multiple countries.

Perhaps if you closed your eyes, hopped around on one foot and sang "lalalalalalalalala!" it will also help reinforce your opinion.

lmfao. awww, you sound so bitter. You just keep making wild assumption after wild assumption with no proof, logic or reason to back up your assertions

Because "discrimination" is such a "bad" word, sometimes those of us who defend Affirmative Action feel the need to stress that it is not "discrimination."

Well, it's not--at least, not in the way most people use the word.

Of course, if you water it down to the pure sense of "making distinctions", then yes: Affirmative Action "discriminates." But there is nothing inherently wrong with discrimination, if what you mean is "making distinctions." We make all sorts of valid distinctions all the time. Indeed, there is not even anything inherently wrong with making racial distinctions, or distinctions based on gender. Physicians do this, and for good reason.
There's a difference between having a "Race:_________" field on a job application and favoring or not favoring a person based on his reply to said field. "Making a distinction" would constitute simply reading and processing this data; discrimination would be making decision based on this data. See the difference yet?

That is the key: the reason. If you discriminate against someone in order to disenfranchise a particular group, or due to prejudice about the group to which he belongs, then you are guilty of invidious discrimination because these are not good reasons. If, on the other hand, you distinguish between qualified applicants such that you prefer minorities in order to combat invidious discrimination, or in order to improve diversity, then this is a perfectly valid kind of discrimination.
So basically, it's not discrimination if it goes against the proverbial grain? How, exactly, do popular [or unpopular] attitudes have any bearing on this definition?

No one (at least that I can see) is claiming we can make things "perfect".
I don't care. Talking about "curing" society leaves and equally bad taste in my mouth.

Moreover, advocates of Affirmative Action are willing to accept reasonable limits to the sort of policies that can be used: quotas, for example, are out. The idea that there is a "cure-all" for society is, indeed, ridiculous; but so is the notion that society does not require "treatment."
I didn't say society doesn't need "treatment," I was suggesting that "treating" it in this manner is bogus.

Look, racism is the lowest, most vile form of collectivism, and I don't advocate any more than I'd advocate passing my testicles through a lamination machine. I don't generally care for the people who are racists, and for the most part their policies are probably just as abhorrent to me as they are to you. The problem I have with Affirmative Action is that it proposes to fight fire with fire, by suggesting that people be encouraged to make their decisions based on the color of the applicant's skin or some other equally ridiculous factor.

AA advocates are always quick to point out that "quotas are out," ignoring the fact that "proportionate representation" is a quota if you stop to think about it: it's a set figure [although I could see it changing with a census, but that's beside the point] that dictates to the employer how many minorities he must hire. Granted, the legislature assumes that both applicants are equally qualified but how often is that really the case? So much of whether a person is qualified or not lies in the decision making skills of the hiring manager. With a law like Affirmative Action on the books, what's he supposed to think? Anyone with two brain cells to rub together for warmth would know that no civil jury in the country would find a white man guilty of hiring a slightly less qualified black over a comparable white candidate, but if we turn the tables it's easy to see how this might not be the case. In either event its a waste of money on the grounds that the hiring manager ought to be in charge of his own goddamn business since he invested in all the capital [or was delegated to hire by someone that did--if he doesn't like the decisions, he can always fire the guy--if he does, then tough noogies] and his life is on the line every bit as much as the applicant's.

The advocates of Affirmative Action--who think we must do something--are not the extremists here. Its opponents--who would do nothing--are.
I suppose that makes our country packed with extremists then, seeing as there are [and I beleive this has been said multiple times already] no remaining Affirmative Action statutes on the books in this country, at least on a state or federal level. If everyone's an extremist, that kind of defeats the whole definition of "extremism."

All of that aside, extremism doesn't always mean "wrong;" 250 years ago it would have been a radical notion that blacks even be allowed to vote, much less get paying jobs.

If wanting to live in a country where I'm free to start a business and decide who works for it without my neighbor hanging his sympathies over my head makes me an extremist, so be it. I'm not a racist--my best friend is black. I'm not going to push black people out my door "just because," and I think it's about time that our legislation appealed to the best in people rather than the worst. This problem won't be solved by throwing money at it and sending government agents to bust up local restaurant chains and family hardware stores--if you want to give minorities a better chance put them on even footing with everyone else; don't tip the scales for [or against] them just because it seems like it might be a good idea. Affirmative Action is Orwell's frightening "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others" prophecy made manifest.

(By the way, what does this have to do with sheep?)
No idea, that's a new one to me. Sheep? Where did this come from?

Right... Yet the government's most direct involvement in affirmative action occurs when employers or schools try to make their own decisions, which some white kid challenges in court.
Maybe it's just my drug-addled mind but I'm not quite sure I understand the point you're trying to make here.

Quotas are, and have been, the exception rather than the rule. Where they appear, they are easily challenged. Opponents go on and on about the horrors of quota systems, yet how many examples can you provide? And please, don't bother with the ubiquitous, "there are several businesses near here" routine. We've all heard it before, and it's becoming more than a little trite. If you have evidence, give it to us. Personally, I find it hard to believe that every opponent of Affirmative Action knows "several businesses" that use racial quotas, verification of which is impossible. Maybe you all just live in the same place?
I love how quickly you've chosen to subsume me in this category of "opponents" who "go on and on about the horrors of quota systems." You prod me for sources before even examining my position, really. Any quotas that currently exist in corporate America are self-imposed, probably illegal, and as such aren't written procedures for said company. It's possible, I suppose, that no one does it like that, but that doesn't strike me as very likely. After all, if no one privately enforces their own personal racial quotas, just what is Affirmative Action trying to stop in the first place?

Let's assume, for the moment that you're right, and that quotas, as they're traditionally defined, are largely a myth. Affirmative Action legislation frequently got around using the word "quotas" in favor of the term "proportional representation" which essentially means "percentage-based quotas." Affirmative Action as an enforcable government policy can not exist without a benchmark by which to gague one's guilt or innocence, and the only way to do that is to guess just how many qualified $MINORITIES [b]should be employed by any given business.

If you want to talk about the results of Affirmative Action, then you will have to consider the improvements it has generated in minority employment and education.
Again, Affirmative Action is dead and has been for nearly a decade. By my reckoning it was dealt something of a death blow when California passed prop 209 in '97. The rates of education and employment for minorities has probably already been going up for some time and has been since the Industrial Revolution.

There's a significant element of white culture that's exactly the same--they're called ignorant ass redneck cracker peckerwoods, and the country is full of them. Let's leave the bullshit out of the discussion, why don't we.

Even so, why is the unemployment rate for Hispanics 4% below that of blacks...even though they as a minority have been growing faster and a large number of them are first generation immigrants?

First, you still haven't told me which laws you despise most. I'm asking again.

Balderdash.

A fine argument. Kudos.

Lawyers, lobbyists, activists, consultants on introducing it.

Now that's balderdash. (Of course, I'll say more than that.)

This is a paranoid and simple-minded view. First of all, lawyers and lobbyists inevitably have to contend with other lawyers and lobbyists... and if it ever comes down to a matter of pure money and political pressure, do you really think it's going to be minority lobbies that win? Really? Are you so paranoid and out-of-touch with reality that you don't recognize power when you see it? Even the Democrats have been barely paying lip-service to the "black vote" lately. Affirmative Action, like welfare, is on the defensive politically--ironically, it has been the conservative Supreme Court that has done the most for it lately... and in theory at least, they are supposed to be free from everyday political pressures (life terms and all).

Usually the groups favoured by affirmative action are no better off (university admissions of minorities are up, but the same is not seen in graduation, the "disparities" still exist after 4 decades),

Balderdash!!

"In 2001, the graduation rate for Asian Americans rose by 5 percentage points since 1991 to 66 percent. Meanwhile, the graduation rate for Hispanics rose by 8 percentage points since 1991 to 49 percent, while the rate for American Indians and African Americans was 41 percent, up by 10 and 8 percentage points, respectively, since 1991."

http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=3719

Yes, the disparities still exist, which is why we still need the programs. But the fact of the matter is that they have been showing tremendous improvement, in great part because of Affirmative Action.

some groups (African-American's particularly) are worse off ... with the exception of those I mentioned above, lawyers, lobbyists, activists, and consultants.

There may be ways in which African Americans are worse off... but they do not appear to include college education. Check your facts, don't make them up.

We can see instances of shakedowns to prevent anti-discrimination lawsuits, such as the Texaco case (who settled out of court by offering its black employees $140m, increasing black employees from 9% to 13%, and dealing with more non-white owned suppliers and financial institutions)

You refuse to entertain the possibility that a company that settles might actually have been doing something wrong, don't you?

It is not an argument one can use to support a particular policy.

Not blandly, and by itself, no. But it is also not the "mark" of a bad policy--it cannot be, since it is the mark of all policy.

Since you have made no effort to establish that what you say is indeed true, what you are saying is a non-sequitor.

Have I been talking to myself for two days? "No effort"... you really can't see reality, can you? Seriously, if you want to have an intelligent conversation, we have to at least be honest with each other. I can recognize your arguments for valid, if mistaken, attempts to prove your point. The least you can do is recognize my "effort".

Rubbish. Childish taunts are childish taunts, no matter what the exact taunt is.

Wow. I knew you were a closet racist, but would you really let kids call a black girl "******"? "... no matter what the exact taunt is," right?

Also, appeals to authorities (especially such vague authorities) won't get you anywhere.

"Appeal to authority" is only a fallacy when the authority is not representative of her/his field... as when you pull some reactionary popular book off a shelf and try to sell it as "expert opinion." My reference is only "vague" because my sources is ubiquitous. Pick up any peer-reviewed social science journal you want, go to the index and find "minority," "African American," or "race," and you will have all the reading your heart desires on how racism affects the lives of people today.

Wow, Sigmund. You made all that up yourself.

Saying so doesn't make it true.

In association, I am for totally free association, a citizen has the right to associate with anyone he pleases, or not to.

Just to clarify, does that mean that private hotels can bring back their "no blacks" policy? Not that I think, realistically, many would--outside the deep South. Of course, I also don't think many would have given up on it in the first place, if the government had not made them.

Just clarifiy that point before we go on. Are we back to "separate but equal" so that citizens need not associate with people they do not want to?

The government must, however, apply all laws an policies equally, without regard to such things as race or sex.

You are in favour of forcing people to associate, or not to based entirely on your views.

This is a restatement of the "public good" criticism, and it fails for the same reason: it can be equally applied to anything government does. What you need to do is to actually criticize those views and show why they are wrong, why we should do things according to your views.

Your view, so far, rests on a presumption of an inviolable right to property. Apparently, if we want to continue, we need to make the argument about that rather than about race. The right to property that you try to establish is the same as the one that opposed minimum wage laws and maximum hours laws (except in the most unhealthy occupations, such as mining). Would you do away with minimum wages and maximum hours, as well? Do clarify for me.

I am for private property rights, even if some people use their property in unproductive, or unfashionable ways. You do not.

That's right. I don't see what's so special about property. But let's have that conversation... I have the sick feeling I already know what you're going to say, and it will give me a great laugh when you say it.

I support free speech, no matter how offensive, and idiotic the result is. You do not.

Also correct. I believe that the right to free speech is meant to accomplish two things: First, it is necessary to a robust democracy--but this protection should only extend to political speech (and it implies a right to some kind of "equal" speech, so it would overrule Buckley v. Valeo); Second, free speech represents an ideal of tolerance... but that means that it demands no tolerance for intolerant speech. Nothing about free speech means we have to tolerate racism.

That makes you no different from the people who drafted the Jim Crow laws. You and they had a vision for society, which you and they believed would make things better, and was truely the right way. Then you and they decided you were entitled to force it on everyone else.

Every politician has a vision for society. That's what politics is. You cannot claim that I am "no different" from the drafters of Jim Crow (though you do love to hyperbolize... Jim Crow... Nazis... it is the sign of a weak debater, you know).

The latter is where you and I truely differ.

Considering that there are a great many people who will not enjoy your property-protecting idyll, you will have to commit to the use of force. You will have to quell the riots, you will have to investigate the saboteurs, you will have to force the laborers back to work. And all because they want life at more than an animal level. It will be the 1880s all over again. Yummy.

I find no valid reason to treat people differently based on race.

Then you must be blind to the fact that they already are treated differently based on race, and according to logic and a long history of the concept of "justice," different cases should be treated differently.

You have not given any real backing for your contention that it has a place in forging a particular view of society.

No real backing? THAT IS WHAT GOVERNMENTS DO!! Yes, some governments may claim that they are "neutral", that they let the economic dice fall where they may... but this, too, is a vision of society. And yes, it will take force to maintain. Inevitably.

The practice of granting favourable treatment to correct races, and gender I question on merit. If it is the government doing it (or any institution that is funded by government), then it is not legitimate. If it is a private citizen, exercising his control over what is his alone, then its legitimacy cannot be questioned.

You have yet to do anything to distinguish public property from private. It makes sense, perhaps, that the public cannot use its property right to disenfranchise the minority--that is a protection of minority rights. But when the government--which represents the majority--chooses to confer benefits on the minority, whose right is being defended to tell them they cannot?

You've not shown a single instance of someone being discriminated against on racial grounds. You've shown inconsiderate bosses, and immature classmates who make childish taunts.

Racism is a lot bigger than discrimination. You have to be blind (or stupid) not to understand that. If you cannot admit at least this simple, basic fact of life--with which the relevant community of specialists is in forceful agreement--then I do not know how we can continue this discussion.

You live in a fantasy world. The worst part is, it is racist and you don't even know it. (Either that, or your smarter than I think and you are actually intentionally distorting the truth for blatantly political purposes.)

You are on guard against uncharitable attitudes, and cannot see whether or not real discrimination has occurred. You might have a case if you could prove that her bosses keep her at the office specifically because she is black.

Again, racism is bigger than discrimination. And I never said her bosses are racist... frankly, I don't think they are. I never thought her job situation had anything to do with racism. But I did see a lot of racism in that classroom, and I can hardly imagine how it would not affect her.

In some cases, the abandonment of affirmative action has had no measurable effect, or a negligable measurable effect (percentages of admissions is a measurable effect).

Source, please?

As to your claim that there is no backlash from affirmative action (i.e. people seeing those of the AA favoured groups employed as being undeserving of their position)

I never said there was "no backlash," I said the backlash came from people who were already decidedly prejudiced and/or ignorant of what Affirmative Action really is.

With affirmative action, a white man can blame any failure to advance on affirmative action.

Before Affirmative Action, white men blamed their failures on blacks. During Affirmative Action, white men blame their failures on blacks. After Affirmative Action, for all I know, white men will blame their failures on blacks.

All this proves is that white men are racists.

In what way does it make sense to consider matters of social equality? Businesses should be concerned with making a profit in order to invest that profit in research, development & human resources. As a privately owned business it has no obligation to serve the political and cultural interests of the public at large, at least not by force of law.

Before even getting to what the law requires, the major point of contention here has been that many businesses choose to implement Affirmative Action hiring programs that no law requires. So whatever you think a business "should be concerned with," many seem to be concerned with improving the diversity of their workforce.

Find me a law that tells businesses they have to engage in Affirmative Action in the actual hiring process. As far as I can tell, the law is generally satisfied as long as you make an effort to post job openings in places where minorities are likely to see them, and to otherwise actively make an effort to expand the pool of candidates. It does not require you to alter your actual decision-making, however, except in requiring that you not discriminate against minorities.

Find me a law that says otherwise, and I will happily revise my opinion. I will also consider the merits of the law.


Well, I do think we need to get rid of the Income Tax and all subsidies. We should also do away with minimum wages and maximum hours, but health codes are necessary for the protection of the employee against corporate neglagence.

Great. Back to the 1880s it is!! Whoopee!!

Class war is unnecessary and so is social chaos, but if that occurs, the only responsibility of the government is to put down the unrest.

Ahh, but the unrest only comes from one side: the poor. So, you are not advocating a class-neutral state after all. You want to switch from a government that takes up the side of the poor against the more powerful... into a government that gangs up with the powerful on the poor.

What a beautiful utopia you would make!

Affirmative Action doesn't bring people together, it divides them by treating them differently, by law. I would, if I were you, expect that Affirmative Action will be undone by the Supreme Court within the next five years. We will have a constitutionalist court for the first time since the creation of Affirmative Action. So, if you'd like to arm yourself and prepare your little riots, now would be the time to prepare.

I strongly doubt that. First of all, even a "constitutionalist" court has some ties to precedent... If they want to do it right, it would take them more than 5 years to lay down the groundwork for overthrowing Affirmative Action. Fifteen, at least. Probably more, considering that this Court is the most troubled in a long time by "realist" claims that they are not interpreting the Constitution, but applying their own policy preferences. Bush v. Gore did tremendous damage that it will take time to repair. It may have been their most damaging decision since Lochner.

Secondly, if the Court is really "conservative" then they may choose to adhere to a traditional legal definition of Supreme Court conservatism: judicial restraint. That means that they allow the political branches to do their work as they please, unless they enact something that is "blatantly" unconstitutional, on its face. This, in turn, ties them even more rigidly to precedent.

Don't expect them to overturn much in the way of social policy. Or, for that matter, Roe v. Wade. If anything, I expect they will continue the trend initiated by Rehnquist (in Lopez, for example) to strike down Congressional "commerce" legislation that infringes on the states' police powers.

(Did I mention that I am a scholar in public law?) ;)

Just to clarify, does that mean that private hotels can bring back their "no blacks" policy? Not that I think, realistically, many would--outside the deep South. Of course, I also don't think many would have given up on it in the first place, if the government had not made them.

Actually, the private sector wasn't too keen on segregation since, in some instances, it prevented them from making money off of large portions of the population--it affected a lot of things, and to an entreprenuer, $1 from a black man is just as good as $1 from a white man. I wouldn't guess they [private concerns] were entirely responsible for what has gone on since then insofar as civil rights goes, but I often find it ironic that hostility towards capitalism and overapologetic attitudes towards race relations seem to go almost hand in hand. Here, they're combined for a subtle attack on a private industry that would likely much prefer to have the ability to cater to both sides of any particular racial line.

Just because people have historically been schmucks to other people in the past doesn't authorize whatever armed mob I happen to live under to demand, ask, or even suggest I should hire anyone but who I want to hire. Early last century, the government (!) wanted people to be segregated: that's why we passed so many stupid laws back then. All that's happened now is we've gotten really apologetic about it, and we're trying to forcibly encourage, if you will, certain attitudes. Good things are hard to come by through government meddling, when their costs and consequences are taken into account. Besides, you should be wary of any term coined by Lyndon B. Johnson.

Before Affirmative Action, white men blamed their failures on blacks. During Affirmative Action, white men blame their failures on blacks. After Affirmative Action, for all I know, white men will blame their failures on blacks.

All this proves is that white men are racists.

All in the face of the fact that blacks have several solid reasons to blame the white man for a good number of their problems. I mean, it really hasn't been that long since people posted "no blacks" in public places, and a good number of people had no problem with that.

Do some people really think 40 years since CONCRETE and SYSTEMATIC discrimination cures all ills?

Actually, the private sector wasn't too keen on segregation since, in some instances, it prevented them from making money off of large portions of the population--it affected a lot of things, and to an entreprenuer, $1 from a black man is just as good as $1 from a white man.

Then why did they repeatedly challenge anti-segregation orders in court, e.g. Katzenback v. McClung which went all the way to the Supreme Court? (Where, of course, appellees were told they did, after all, have to serve black people in their restaurant.) By the way, they got around that loss of $1 by offering blacks a drive-up service--they just weren't allowed inside.

I wouldn't guess they [private concerns] were entirely responsible for what has gone on since then insofar as civil rights goes, but I often find it ironic that hostility towards capitalism and overapologetic attitudes towards race relations seem to go almost hand in hand. Here, they're combined for a subtle attack on a private industry that would likely much prefer to have the ability to cater to both sides of any particular racial line.

It is true that capitalism has a tendency to break down value systems rather than uphold them (which is why it's so ironic that the conservative Right is currently allied with capital, historically their sworn enemy for most of American history). On the other hand, you cannot discount the degree to which personal views influence the way a company does business... and the fact that, as long as the discrimination is relatively ubiquitous, it does not affect competition. Without a sincere effort by minority activists and, ultimately, government, business seemed in no hurry to enfranchise blacks.

Besides, you should be wary of any term coined by Lyndon B. Johnson.

Aww, LBJ wasn't so bad... I'm a far-Lefty, and even I can see the good in him. He was pretty fucked up about Vietnam (there is good evidence that his innate narcissism played into this), but he had a pretty decent domestic vision. And when he actively pursued Civil Rights, he knew there was nothing in it for him politically. Indeed, he remarked at one point that he knew he was "writing off the South" for the Democratic party for the predictable future. He did it because he actually thought it was right... and that's something admirable in a politician these days.

Do some people really think 40 years since CONCRETE and SYSTEMATIC discrimination cures all ills?

Some people believe what they want to believe--or whatever is convenient for them.

-snip-

Do some people really think 40 years since CONCRETE and SYSTEMATIC discrimination cures all ills?

No---only disregarding race completely will do that.

People still self-segregate. When I went to university, there was a dormitory which most of the black students tried to get into. Its unofficial name was "chocolate city." And they had women living there, in the single sex dorms for men. But the university did nothing about it, probably because they didn't want to "discriminate."

Having grown up in mixed neighborhoods and gone to mixed schools, I went to a mixed all-male dorm, which was where I felt more comfortable.

If some people are uncomfortable with other colors or sexes, so be it. If someone wants to operate a filipino-only smoking restaurant, let them. I worked at a job where a filipino supervisor hired only filipinos in her department. The liberal supervisor only hired liberals. Etc, etc, etc.

Its called reality. Get over it.

If someone wants to operate a filipino-only smoking restaurant, let them. I worked at a job where a filipino supervisor hired only filipinos in her department. The liberal supervisor only hired liberals. Etc, etc, etc.
Then that is no longer self-segregation, that is discrimination. No pulling fast ones around here, mister.

No---only disregarding race completely will do that.

Right. Because ignoring problems always makes them go away.

People still self-segregate. When I went to university, there was a dormitory which most of the black students tried to get into. Its unofficial name was "chocolate city."

Based on the available evidence, including the wonderfully racist term "chocolate city," do you think it is at least possible that the black students "self-segregated" because they did not feel welcome dorming with the white kids? Is it not possible that, with whatever other racist cues you gave them, you were the ones who initiated the segregation?

And they had women living there, in the single sex dorms for men.

Oh no! The world will end! In my experience, having now gone to a total of three schools, there are always some women shacking up with their boyfriends, and vice versa... I would be extraordinarily surprised if it was not going on in your own dormitory as well. Maybe you just failed to "notice," because you weren't looking for things to criticize... unlike your view of "chocolate city."

But the university did nothing about it, probably because they didn't want to "discriminate."

Or they didn't know... or they found it more costly to enforce the rule than not. As I said, I've never known a university that went out of its way to enforce such rules, so I don't know why this one would have anything to do with race.

Its called reality. Get over it.

It is called reality. At least we agree that far. But "get over it" is not a very compelling argument.

It is called reality. At least we agree that far. But "get over it" is not a very compelling argument.

Agreed. "It's reality. Do something about it," makes a whole lot more sense

Then why did they repeatedly challenge anti-segregation orders in court, e.g. Katzenback v. McClung which went all the way to the Supreme Court? (Where, of course, appellees were told they did, after all, have to serve black people in their restaurant.) By the way, they got around that loss of $1 by offering blacks a drive-up service--they just weren't allowed inside.
Why? Because some people were [and still are] stupid, and few political or cultural values can be ascribed to all of them. The rational industrialists, laborers, white-collar workers--the people whom I am defending with that argument, would be opposed to segregation as policy. You're saying "Can hotels go back to the 'no blacks' rule" while admitting that most of them wouldn't even do it. You're proposing to fix a problem that you admit probably wouldn't even exist without the racial attitudes you're trying to encourage.

It is true that capitalism has a tendency to break down value systems rather than uphold them (which is why it's so ironic that the conservative Right is currently allied with capital, historically their sworn enemy for most of American history).
Don't give me that shit. You talk about "breaking down value systems" without even defining them or explaining how your values are more legitimate than mine, or why they're expendable or not.

If we examine the concept of "value" for more than a fraction of a second [the time necessary it takes to come to the conclusion that "all values are relative" and some such equivalent garbage, or that they "don't exist" or "can't be attained"], several axioms about value become apparent:


Value cannot be possible without life. No object has any specific value to any other object in anything more than a functional capacity: for instance, stars one may argue that stars have value to planets by keeping them in orbit, but matter can only break down and it will many times as it has done many times throughout the course of history. In this instance, the two bodies can't be said to "value" one another since no alternative exists for either entity. To value something presupposes that one of the two entities being discussed [the valuer and/or the object being valued] is alive. Therefore, [i]life is the root of value
Since life is the root of value, anything that damges or impairs a life [usually through the application of force from an outside agent, usually other humans] is evil, and anything which facilitates is is good.
Since life is the root of value, we can assume that the product of that life is or at least ought to be of equal import to the person living said life. This means that properly defined property , since it [i]could not exist without a producer should be regarded as a correlary to life and value.
Thus, capitalism upholds the most basic value system in that it allows its citizens to live and produce for themselves. Asking someone else to do it against their will is asking that the lives of others be his standard of value: if you think this is or should be the case consider that it can't be applied across all modes of life whereas my model [one based on self-preservation] can.


On the other hand, you cannot discount the degree to which personal views influence the way a company does business... and the fact that, as long as the discrimination is relatively ubiquitous, it does not affect competition. Without a sincere effort by minority activists and, ultimately, government, business seemed in no hurry to enfranchise blacks.
And it wouldn't have ever happened without a significant white population with a growing middle class voting for politicians to make such policies a reality.

Of course personal views influence the way a business operates: that's the way it should be. A company [or, for that matter an individual, or for that matter a government program] shouldn't be a slave to whatever social attitudes you or the conservatives, reactionaries, Scientologists--whoever happens to hold.

Aww, LBJ wasn't so bad... I'm a far-Lefty, and even I can see the good in him. He was pretty fucked up about Vietnam (there is good evidence that his innate narcissism played into this), but he had a pretty decent domestic vision. And when he actively pursued Civil Rights, he knew there was nothing in it for him politically. Indeed, he remarked at one point that he knew he was "writing off the South" for the Democratic party for the predictable future. He did it because he actually thought it was right... and that's something admirable in a politician these days.
I've noticed something of an apologetic attitude towards LBJ in recent years, a lot of the new liberal bumper crop of [unfortunately] my generation seem to like to forgive him on "virtue" of his Great Society plans, asking that I look the other way on things like Vietnam or the... errr... Great Society, frankly. Ask most people who were actually alive back then and they're likely to have something of a dimmer view of LBJ. I'd say he's about as bad a President as we've had in the 20th century.

So what, you're giving him credit for knowing racism was bad? What's the deal with that? It's like going to the Dairy Queen and giving the shopkeeper a pat on the back for keeping the freezers plugged in. Anyone with any wits knows to do both.

Why? Because some people were [and still are] stupid, and few political or cultural values can be ascribed to all of them. The rational industrialists, laborers, white-collar workers--the people whom I am defending with that argument, would be opposed to segregation as policy. You're saying "Can hotels go back to the 'no blacks' rule" while admitting that most of them wouldn't even do it. You're proposing to fix a problem that you admit probably wouldn't even exist without the racial attitudes you're trying to encourage.

Um. You have a basic problem with your "rational industrialist" theory.

Most major companies have voluntary affirmative action programs. The rational choice has been to embrace what you say they shouldn't do.


So what, you're giving him credit for knowing racism was bad? What's the deal with that? It's like going to the Dairy Queen and giving the shopkeeper a pat on the back for keeping the freezers plugged in. Anyone with any wits knows to do both.

Nice to look back in hindsight and say civil rights were obvious. Too bad Barry Goldwater and other opponents of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 lacked "any wits." At the time, LBJ's moves to protect civil rights were bold new initiatives. At least be historically honest enough to recognize that.

Why? Because some people were [and still are] stupid, and few political or cultural values can be ascribed to all of them. The rational industrialists, laborers, white-collar workers--the people whom I am defending with that argument, would be opposed to segregation as policy.

If sufficient numbers of industrialists were rational we might not, indeed, need such legislation. Unfortunately I am not convinced that they are generally so rational. Besides which, an equally rational business-person might have recognized that the second-class citizenship of blacks provided a mass of cheap, unprotected, and unorganized labor... in much the way that many business-people today support the status-quo immigration policy: hard-to-get citizenship, but with under-enforced borders. Nice, cheap labor.

The "rationality" of business cannot often be counted upon to treat people as justice demands.

You're proposing to fix a problem that you admit probably wouldn't even exist without the racial attitudes you're trying to encourage.

I encourage racial awareness that combats racist attitudes. There is a clear difference, and it does you no credit to deny it.

Don't give me that shit. You talk about "breaking down value systems" without even defining them or explaining how your values are more legitimate than mine, or why they're expendable or not.

What the hell are you talking about? I merely stated an historical relationship between the capitalist market and cultural values. To clarify: the market tends to have a liberalizing, relativizing effect. It bridles at censorship of traditionally "obscene" material (because it can sell it). It encourages cultural liberation of groups such as women or homosexuals, whom businesses believe can be turned into succesful markets. It loosens restrictions on children because it wants to expand their purchasing power.

And who said anything about "expendable"? There are some values that capitalism attacks that I like, and some I don't. You're reading things into what I say. (Historically, however, it was true up through the 1960s that the Christian right hated the corporate lobby, for exactly this reason. Their recent alliance is an interesting story in political history.)

*snip*

That whole bunch of nonsense appears to be some perverted version of Locke's theory of property. I'll assume that's what you meant, unless you tell me otherwise.

Thus, capitalism upholds the most basic value system in that it allows its citizens to live and produce for themselves.

You must be using a definition of "basic" with which I am unfamiliar, since the original, simplest societies were communal and had no conception of private property beyond the protection of personal possessions. Locke had the same problem: he took a positive right with great pragmatic value for a market society--property, because individuals need it to survive--and dressed it up as a "natural" right "ordained by God" (his words).

Asking someone else to do it against their will is asking that the lives of [i]others be his standard of value: if you think this is or should be the case consider that it can't be applied across all modes of life whereas my model [one based on self-preservation] can.

Actually, precisely the opposite is true. Human beings appear, by all available evidence to be innately social, moral beings. Everywhere we find them, we find them in society. Social relations do not appear, as you and Mr. Locke would have it, to be an expedient to personal gain, but rather of value in themselves. But if social relations are of value in themselves, then there must be a source of moral awareness rooted more deeply than pure self-interest.

And it wouldn't have ever happened without a significant white population with a growing middle class voting for politicians to make such policies a reality.

Maybe. But most of them were from the North, imposing their policy on a South that was willing (sometimes violently) to oppose it.

Of course personal views influence the way a business operates: that's the way it should be. A company [or, for that matter an individual, or for that matter a government program] shouldn't be a slave to whatever social attitudes you or the conservatives, reactionaries, Scientologists--whoever happens to hold.

The only reason a company is able to do business is because society is organized to allow him to do so. Business depends on laws. Property depends on laws. Property in anything other than the immediate fruits of one's labor and personal possessions depends on having a society to defend it.

But since the individual's property depends on society, he must be willing to accept the society's terms-of-use. Liberals such as myself interpret these widely, thinking that great freedom in property is beneficial to all; but when property becomes detrimental to the equality, stability, or freedom of all... then it is property that must be limited, not equality, stability, freedom... or the pursuit of happiness.

I've noticed something of an apologetic attitude towards LBJ in recent years,

Due to recent scholarship, we have come to understand that LBJ, however bad a President he may have been, was not in fact evil.

So what, you're giving him credit for knowing racism was bad? What's the deal with that?

A lot knew racism was bad. How many were willing to pay the political price necessary to do anything about it?

Um. You have a basic problem with your "rational industrialist" theory.

Most major companies have voluntary affirmative action programs. The rational choice has been to embrace what you say they shouldn't do.

Yep... I've been trying to tell them that for two days, but no one wants to listen. I have challenged them to produce one of these "laws" that they claim "forces" businesses to adopt Affirmative Action against their will; they have failed to produce any.

Yep... I've been trying to tell them that for two days, but no one wants to listen. I have challenged them to produce one of these "laws" that they claim "forces" businesses to adopt Affirmative Action against their will; they have failed to produce any.

Correct me if I'm wrong, because I really don't know, but earlier in this thread, I think I read that there weren't any laws forcing Affirmative Action on universites/colleges. Is this true?

Correct me if I'm wrong, because I really don't know, but earlier in this thread, I think I read that there weren't any laws forcing Affirmative Action on universites/colleges. Is this true?

I am reasonably certain that is true of private schools. It may be that some public schools are subject to policies established by the state... but for the most part, other than obligations in some cases to admit certain numbers of students from the home state, public schools are as free to determine their admissions as any other schools.

At the same time, it is also true that most major universities practice some form of Affirmative Action... NOT imposed by the state.

Whether or not "underrepresentation" exists is not at issue. What is at issue is whether or not the existance of "underrepresentation" does itself constitute a problem, or is it merely there.

Um.

1. You did argue several times that there was no proof of underrepresentation. I'm glad to see that you've dropped that argument --after I posted copious proof that minorities are underrepresented, underprivileged, and continue to suffer from discrimination.

2. I posted statistics and studies showing that minorities suffer from underrepresentation and discrimination and, as a result, suffer disproportionately from unemployment, underemployment, poverty, poor health, etc. Now you say that isn't a bad thing, but is "merely there." Thank you for making clear you have no interest in either equality or a fair society.

Correct me if I'm wrong, because I really don't know, but earlier in this thread, I think I read that there weren't any laws forcing Affirmative Action on universites/colleges. Is this true?

Depends.

Private colleges are not subject to any laws requiring affirmative action.

Public colleges, of course, always act under color of law.

Private employers are not subject to any laws requiring affirmative action.

Much of the whining about property rights in this thread is based on a simple misunderstanding that I tried to point out in my OP.

If some people are uncomfortable with other colors or sexes, so be it. If someone wants to operate a filipino-only smoking restaurant, let them. I worked at a job where a filipino supervisor hired only filipinos in her department. The liberal supervisor only hired liberals. Etc, etc, etc.

Its called reality. Get over it.

Um. Ever heard of the Civil Rights Act of 1964? IT is REALITY. Get over it.

Apparently you aren't against affirmative action, you are pro-discrimination.

that I haven't been able to keep up my end of the discussion in this thread. I mainly blame the servers. During much of the time I was available to post, I could not do so.

I will make a few points:

1. Quotas are illegal (except in very specific court-ordered circumstances due to past discrimination). All of you bitching about quotas aren't bitching about affirmative action.

2. Anti-discrimination laws protect all races, colors, ethnicities, creeds, religions, genders, etc., equally. You cannot discriminate against a white male anymore than you can discriminate against a black lesbian.

3. Merit as I explained is not black & white (no pun intended). Beyond a certain point of being qualified or unqualified, there is often a vast pool of generally equally qualified candidates. Contrary to the popular notion, hiring decisions are rarely simply a matter of picking the "most qualified" but rather deciding who to hire among relatively equal candidates. In such circumstances, the desire to have a representative workplace can be one factor in deciding which candidate to choose.

Note: if you choose a clearly less qualified candidate over a more qualified candidate based on race, you have discriminated illegally. That is not affirmative action.

4. Non-action and so-called "color-blindness" will not solve the problem of (a) a legacy of severe discrimination (slavery, segregation, and discrimination) and (b) ongoing widespread discrimination. I showed evidence of current discrimination and the plight of minorities. No one disputed that evidence. Simply locking in the status quo is not acceptable.

{Sits back and enjoys the complete dismemberment of the anti-affirmative action argument. Really. It's getting embarrassing.}

{Sips at his beverage}

{That's good debunking.}

Public colleges, of course, always act under color of law.

Are there laws requiring Affirmative Action of some sort?

Are there laws requiring Affirmative Action of some sort?

There are laws requiring affirmative action in public employment and public contracting.

for example,
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/ofccp/aa.htm
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/ofccp/fs11246.htm

There are laws requiring affirmative action in public employment and public contracting.

for example,
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/ofccp/aa.htm
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/ofccp/fs11246.htm

What about universities? Public ones?

What about universities? Public ones?

Again, most universities have an internally-selected affirmative action program.

With a private university, this is clearly not a matter of "law."

With a public university, anything it does is under color of law. So, in that sense, their are affirmative action laws for universities. To my knowledge, however, most states don't have statutes mandating affirmative action at state colleges. Rather, the state colleges adopt programs themselves.

I hope that answers your question. I don't see the relevance to the specificity.

What about universities? Public ones?

Well, technically Title IX of the Civil Rights Act provides for Affirmative Action geared toward gender equality in sports for post-secondary institutions receiving federal funding.

There are an array of state laws dealing with their own schools. Are you looking for one state in particular?

Again, most universities have an internally-selected affirmative action program.

With a private university, this is clearly not a matter of "law."

Sorry if I'm making you repeat yourself; I haven't read nearly all of this thread and just wanted some simple questions answered without having to read too much.

In short, I'm a perfect American :)

With a public university, anything it does is under color of law. So, in that sense, their are affirmative action laws for universities. To my knowledge, however, most states don't have statutes mandating affirmative action at state colleges. Rather, the state colleges adopt programs themselves.

I hope that answers your question. I don't see the relevance to the specificity.

It does answer my question, thank you. Now, if you don't mind, I have just one more:

Two equaly qualified persons have applied for a position--one is chosen because of race.

That is NOT affirmative action, is it?

Two equaly qualified persons have applied for a position--one is chosen because of race.

That is NOT affirmative action, is it?

I'll be curious to see if Cat-Tribes answers differently, but for my part:

If two equally qualified persons have applied for a position, then they constitute the "qualified applicant pool." Since they are equally qualified, it is acceptable to make a decision based on non-merit criteria.

If the minority candidate is chosen to work toward diversity goals, that is Affirmative Action.

If the non-minority candidate is chosen for some non-race related reason (e.g. he is a member of the employer's fraternity), then that is NOT racist.* It is also perfectly legal.

If the non-minority candidate is chosen due to the employer's prejudice toward minorities, or as part of a consistent program of discrimination against minorities, then that is race discrimination. It is illegal.

*EDIT: I feel it should be noted that this sort of decision making does tend to perpetuate racial disparities, despite the fact that the motivation itself is not racist--and therefore not subject to legal restrictions. Affirmative Action is enacted, in part, to combat these sorts of habits. Since white men have a greater range of "implicit" preference-boosters (which have NOTHING to do with considerations of merit) some employers see fit to "balance the scale" by giving minority appicants an "explicit" preference-booster.

If two equally qualified persons have applied for a position, then they constitute the "qualified applicant pool." Since they are equally qualified, it is acceptable to make a decision based on non-merit criteria.

The bolded part, I think, seems very logical.

If the minority candidate is chosen to work toward diversity goals, that is Affirmative Action.

Seems reasonable enough. It even allows the "acceptor" to chose who they want--something I think I read earlier in this thread from the anti-AA faction.

If the non-minority candidate is chosen for some non-race related reason (e.g. he is a member of the employer's fraternity), then that is NOT racist. It is also perfectly legal.

Seems perfectly reasonable.

If the non-minority candidate is chosen due to the employer's prejudice toward minorities, or as part of a consistent program of discrimination against minorities, then that is race discrimination. It is illegal.

Seems perfectly reasonable.

Thanks for answering the question. Affirmative Action does not select less-qualified minorities over the more-qualified majority.

In fact, based on what you've posted, Affirmative Action still allows for the majority to be accepted over an equally qualified minority.

I think you've got me on your side.

EDIT: And the converse--the minority is choosen because of prejudice towards the majority, it is illegal too. Right?

EDIT: And the converse--the minority is chosen because of prejudice towards the majority, it is illegal too. Right?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Now here's a question that's more difficult to answer--how come the Anti-AA Faction can't seem to understand this?

Cat_Tribe. I think I can now answer your question.

the answer, in my opinion, is both action and inaction on the part of everyone. (of course you can throw in the mix of Corrupt and incompetant lawyers and Judges)

Several companies get hit with Court Ordered Hiring Quotas. Other companies see this and to prevent getting Labled as being Racially Discriminating, initiate their own Hiring Quotas to avoid legal complications.

Now AA groups see this and assume that the companies are now pro-active... and since they cannot see the hiring process, assume that the increase in the % of under represented groups is because of equal opportunity employment and not because of the company's employment quotas.

Then came the entertainment industry. not just movies, but books as well. many examples of people referring themselves as a "Quota number" as well as On-Screen lawyers grilling people about the "% of _________ in your workforce." added to the Illusion that Hiring Quotas were seen by AA groups as a "Good Thing." and not having such may make you "Racially Discriminating."

Add to the fact that it is difficult for a White Male to prove discrimination without it being so outragous that it can't be anything else but Discrimination, allowed the Hiring Quota phantom to hover around for so long.

all this piled up to and with no one (or no one loud enough) to correct it, Hiring Quotas became the "Tool" of AA.

Think that might be what happened?

4. Non-action and so-called "color-blindness" will not solve the problem of (a) a legacy of severe discrimination (slavery, segregation, and discrimination) and (b) ongoing widespread discrimination. I showed evidence of current discrimination and the plight of minorities. No one disputed that evidence. Simply locking in the status quo is not acceptable.agreed. One way to remove discrimination is to remove the Ethnic Majority. having people grow up for several generations without one group being the majority does help.

But such areas are few and far between.

1. So your argument isn't bad law, but bad judges and lawyers.

2. This relates to affirmative action how?

It relates directly to it, because that's how it's implemented.

Tell me, how can you say quotas are illegal under affirmative action, when the university system in California up until recently was giving certain minorities a major break on test scores, etc., in order to reach "targets"?

Sounds like quotas to me. It also doesn't sound like "equally qualified applicants", either.

You know what bothers me the most about this entire topic? Whether affirmative action exists in the state that many people imagine it or not, perceptions are coloured by the idea that 'minorities' and women are somehow unfairly being promoted over white males. This means, as a woman, and/or a minority, that people make ridiculous assumptions about you, based on your gender and colour. Things like, 'whose spot at University did you steal?', or 'I wonder who didn't get that teaching position' etc. Yes, let's forget that I graduated from high school with 95% average and bloody well EARNED my way into University. Let's forget that as an off-reservation Indian, I didn't get a bloody cent to pay for my schooling (it's more fun to assume I got a free ride). Let's forget that I scooped this job because I was the one with the most fluency in Spanish...in fact, the most qualified applicant. Let's forget all that and pretend that my tits and my skin colour got me where I am today. That way, certain racists and misogynists can continue to feel superior, and convince themselves that they aren't getting ahead simply because they are being discriminated against.

You know what bothers me the most about this entire topic? Whether affirmative action exists in the state that many people imagine it or not, perceptions are coloured by the idea that 'minorities' and women are somehow unfairly being promoted over white males. This means, as a woman, and/or a minority, that people make ridiculous assumptions about you, based on your gender and colour. Things like, 'whose spot at University did you steal?', or 'I wonder who didn't get that teaching position' etc. Yes, let's forget that I graduated from high school with 95% average and bloody well EARNED my way into University. Let's forget that as an off-reservation Indian, I didn't get a bloody cent to pay for my schooling (it's more fun to assume I got a free ride). Let's forget that I scooped this job because I was the one with the most fluency in Spanish...in fact, the most qualified applicant. Let's forget all that and pretend that my tits and my skin colour got me where I am today. That way, certain racists and misogynists can continue to feel superior, and convince themselves that they aren't getting ahead simply because they are being discriminated against.
What many pro-affirmative action people miss is the fact it can amount to reverse discrimination, despite its benefits. Hell, most anti-affirmative action people couldn't care less about that, they are just whiny superiorists. Requiring X amount of X minority to go to the school via a quota, or giving X race X amount of points towards entrance or hiring can, and hass, amount to reverse discrimination as it can, and has, prevent qualified "majorities" from being hired/given entrance in favor of less qualified minorities. Alot of the time, self-segregation is one of the biggest factors. I had a friend, a black guy, bloody genius. He made up his own chemistry proofs and had to explain them to the teacher, mainly just to irk her too. He could have gone to any college he wanted to get into. He went to a majority black local college (the college I went to would have given him a free ride for as long as he wanted to go - free board, free food, free books, free classes - and a free laptop to boot).

Probably because everyone that uses it (like universities) use it that way. I understand that minorities sometimes do have a harder time getting into a university or the such. What I don't like is when those of the majority are passed over because they already have to many of them even when they are more qualified. Of course the same goes the other way. I hate when anyone uses race or gender as a reason someone should not be chosen.

I think the policy of asking the race of the individual should be stopped. For a school or job aplication it is NOT needed. There is no reason it should be mentioned or asked.

What many pro-affirmative action people miss is the fact it can amount to reverse discrimination, despite its benefits. Hell, most anti-affirmative action people couldn't care less about that, they are just whiny superiorists. Requiring X amount of X minority to go to the school via a quota, or giving X race X amount of points towards entrance or hiring can, and hass, amount to reverse discrimination as it can, and has, prevent qualified "majorities" from being hired/given entrance in favor of less qualified minorities. Alot of the time, self-segregation is one of the biggest factors. I had a friend, a black guy, bloody genius. He made up his own chemistry proofs and had to explain them to the teacher, mainly just to irk her too. He could have gone to any college he wanted to get into. He went to a majority black local college (the college I went to would have given him a free ride for as long as he wanted to go - free board, free food, free books, free classes - and a free laptop to boot).
So what you are basically doing is supporting this:

Whether affirmative action exists in the state that many people imagine it or not, perceptions are coloured by the idea that 'minorities' and women are somehow unfairly being promoted over white males.

as being true.

Hehe, this post is fun to read.

So what you are basically doing is supporting this:



as being true.
I will not sit here and play your game.

All you get is this:
What many pro-affirmative action people miss is the fact it can amount to reverse discrimination, despite its benefits.

Hehe, this post is fun to read.
Which, this one?:D

Right. Because ignoring problems always makes them go away.



Based on the available evidence, including the wonderfully racist term "chocolate city," do you think it is at least possible that the black students "self-segregated" because they did not feel welcome dorming with the white kids? Is it not possible that, with whatever other racist cues you gave them, you were the ones who initiated the segregation?

Well, I hope that as a black man, I did not send anyone cues telling them to room away from me...Also, "chocolate city" was their own name for the dorm. Cause the white people were too afraid of a bunch of black guys to say such a thing.


Oh no! The world will end! In my experience, having now gone to a total of three schools, there are always some women shacking up with their boyfriends, and vice versa... I would be extraordinarily surprised if it was not going on in your own dormitory as well. Maybe you just failed to "notice," because you weren't looking for things to criticize... unlike your view of "chocolate city."

No, nobody was doing that in my dorm---on my floor, we were wild, but not that wild. And the other floors were too nerdy (their favorite pasttime was playing Parcheesi).



Or they didn't know... or they found it more costly to enforce the rule than not. As I said, I've never known a university that went out of its way to enforce such rules, so I don't know why this one would have anything to do with race.

Maybe you are right---maybe the rumors only where because they were black.


It is called reality. At least we agree that far. But "get over it" is not a very compelling argument.

You know what bothers me the most about this entire topic? Whether affirmative action exists in the state that many people imagine it or not, perceptions are coloured by the idea that 'minorities' and women are somehow unfairly being promoted over white males. This means, as a woman, and/or a minority, that people make ridiculous assumptions about you, based on your gender and colour. Things like, 'whose spot at University did you steal?', or 'I wonder who didn't get that teaching position' etc. Yes, let's forget that I graduated from high school with 95% average and bloody well EARNED my way into University. Let's forget that as an off-reservation Indian, I didn't get a bloody cent to pay for my schooling (it's more fun to assume I got a free ride). Let's forget that I scooped this job because I was the one with the most fluency in Spanish...in fact, the most qualified applicant. Let's forget all that and pretend that my tits and my skin colour got me where I am today. That way, certain racists and misogynists can continue to feel superior, and convince themselves that they aren't getting ahead simply because they are being discriminated against.


Yes, and let's forget that in some university affirmative action programs (not yours perhaps), some minorities can be granted a spot in university with scores 20 percent below everyone else's. They can show up with bad grades, bad test scores, and still get in over technically more qualified people.

It shows in the graduation rate at those schools - they still can't get them to match the graduation rate - perhaps it's because they aren't qualified.

Show me an affirmative action program that doesn't cut anyone a break on grades and test scores - that says, ok, we'll choose some minorities with equal test scores to get the percentages to a fair level, and I'll support it.

As a female USAF veteran, I have had to deal with this issue directly. Military entrance standards are different for women than men. For example, women don't need to be able to lift as much weight, or run as fast, or do as many pushups, etc. in order to serve.

Know what the result is? Many of the men believe the women they serve with are weaker, or aren't as qualified. In many instances, they are right. This perpetuates women being seen as weaker, whether they are or not. If the entrance standard were the same, that perception would change considerably.

This is why I OBJECT to affirmative action. It's good in principle, but the results can be just as negative as the evil it's trying to address. Who wants to perform a job alongside someone you believe is underqualified, or only has their job because of preferential treatment? (Especially a life-and-death job like the military.) And who wants to perform that job wondering if you ARE underqualified, and having your comrades in arms second-guessing your abilities and questioning whether you deserve your job?

That's the reality of affirmative action. It's not the right solution.

Then that is no longer self-segregation, that is discrimination. No pulling fast ones around here, mister.

Sorry, I threw too many things into that post and hit blend.

You are correct. Supervisors making sure that their departments were full of their own race or political persuasion is out-and-out discrimination. But that company tolerated it. Of course, it was incorporated in a southern state, and the top officers were from that state, so maybe they understood and approved of such practices from experience...

As a female USAF veteran, I have had to deal with this issue directly. Military entrance standards are different for women than men. For example, women don't need to be able to lift as much weight, or run as fast, or do as many pushups, etc. in order to serve.

Know what the result is? Many of the men believe the women they serve with are weaker, or aren't as qualified. In many instances, they are right. This perpetuates women being seen as weaker, whether they are or not. If the entrance standard were the same, that perception would change considerably.

This is why I OBJECT to affirmative action. It's good in principle, but the results can be just as negative as the evil it's trying to address. Who wants to perform a job alongside someone you believe is underqualified, or only has their job because of preferential treatment? (Especially a life-and-death job like the military.) And who wants to perform that job wondering if you ARE underqualified, and having your comrades in arms second-guessing your abilities and questioning whether you deserve your job?

That's the reality of affirmative action. It's not the right solution.

I agree. I've seen plenty of women who could meet the male physical standards. Why make different standards? Just say, "to be an artillery soldier you have to be able to lift and carry x number of 155mm shells in x minutes from point A to point B".

Yes, and let's forget that in some university affirmative action programs (not yours perhaps), some minorities can be granted a spot in university with scores 20 percent below everyone else's. At my University, 'Mature' students (over 35) can be considered with lower scores than other candidates. That doesn't particularly bother me. Some programs also consider aboriginal applicants based on a specialised aboriginal program (such as the Aboriginal Law Program from the University of Saskatchewan) as being enough of a primer to allow native applicants in without the CUSTOMARY BUT NOT REQUIRED Bachelor Degree. These are not legislated programs, but voluntary, in order to increase the opportunities for students who might not otherwise have a chance to get in. Shockingly enough, these students must maintain a satisfactory grade average like everyone else. Even more shocking is that they are not handed a degree, but rather must earn it. The MOST shocking issue is that more than their academic history is being considered. Sort of like people who do a lot of volunteer work tend to be considered over lazy bastards who slid through school with ease.

Show me an affirmative action program that doesn't cut anyone a break on grades and test scores - that says, ok, we'll choose some minorities with equal test scores to get the percentages to a fair level, and I'll support it.
You know damn well that there are plenty of programs out there that consider more than grades and test scores, and have nothing to do with affirmative action. Why not bitch about those too? How dare grades not be the only factor in deciding admissions? Is that your beef?

As a female USAF veteran, I have had to deal with this issue directly. Military entrance standards are different for women than men. For example, women don't need to be able to lift as much weight, or run as fast, or do as many pushups, etc. in order to serve.

Know what the result is? Many of the men believe the women they serve with are weaker, or aren't as qualified. In many instances, they are right. This perpetuates women being seen as weaker, whether they are or not. If the entrance standard were the same, that perception would change considerably.

This is why I OBJECT to affirmative action. It's good in principle, but the results can be just as negative as the evil it's trying to address. Who wants to perform a job alongside someone you believe is underqualified, or only has their job because of preferential treatment? (Especially a life-and-death job like the military.) And who wants to perform that job wondering if you ARE underqualified, and having your comrades in arms second-guessing your abilities and questioning whether you deserve your job?

That's the reality of affirmative action. It's not the right solution.


That reminds me of my wife's experience at the police academy. They did not lower the standards, for her class at least, so they knew that my wife could match or outdo the men in most areas, including the physical requirements. :cool:

That made the commandant have to take extraordinary action to ensure that my wife did not graduate at the top of her class, because he didn't think women, even if qualified, should be police officers...:(

Unfortunately, my wife has never been a litigator, so no lawsuit, even though it would have been justified.

You know damn well that there are plenty of programs out there that consider more than grades and test scores, and have nothing to do with affirmative action. Why not bitch about those too? How dare grades not be the only factor in deciding admissions? Is that your beef?

Studies indicate that they are the primary indicator of whether or not you're going to graduate once admitted.

Tests and grades.

It is a waste of precious educational resources to send someone to school who by the statistics isn't going to make it to the end.

You know damn well that there are plenty of programs out there that consider more than grades and test scores, and have nothing to do with affirmative action. Why not bitch about those too? How dare grades not be the only factor in deciding admissions? Is that your beef?
well Sinuhue. perhaps the problem isn't the system itself, but those who exploit the system on both sides.

These are not legislated programs, but voluntary, in order to increase the opportunities for students who might not otherwise have a chance to get in.

If there are only 10 spots available, and 100 people want them, how do you pick which 10 deserve them most?

Merit? Skin color? Gender? Family history? National history? Religion? Wealth/poverty situation? One of each???

How do you decide who deserves it most?

Studies indicate that they are the primary indicator of whether or not you're going to graduate once admitted.

Tests and grades.

It is a waste of precious educational resources to send someone to school who by the statistics isn't going to make it to the end.
Nonetheless, applicants are often chosen over others based on factors other than grades. Again, things like volunteer work, work experience in the field, etc. There are often more applicants than there are spaces, and it doesn't always come down to grades. If someone 'gets your spot' because they spent hours in the community helping out, and you didn't, is that reverse discrimination?

<all sorts of terrible things>
Unfortunately, my wife has never been a litigator, so no lawsuit, even though it would have been justified.

:mad:

That guy... oooh...

I agree, it would have been justified.

Nonetheless, applicants are often chosen over others based on factors other than grades. Again, things like volunteer work, work experience in the field, etc. There are often more applicants than there are spaces, and it doesn't always come down to grades. If someone 'gets your spot' because they spent hours in the community helping out, and you didn't, is that reverse discrimination?

No, that's not reverse discrimination.

But if you have percentile targets to meet and use those targets to weight community service as more important, then it is.

well Sinuhue. perhaps the problem isn't the system itself, but those who exploit the system on both sides.
I don't think you understand. I'm supporting the concept that grades alone do not a good student make. Someone who flies through high school without breaking a sweat is not necessarily going to do well in University. I support the fact that other factors are taken into consideration at times. Schools need to know not only can their students get the grades, but can they hack the responsibility, do they have the tenacity to pursue their program even through personal difficulty, etc.

If there are only 10 spots available, and 100 people want them, how do you pick which 10 deserve them most?

Merit? Skin color? Gender? Family history? National history? Religion? Wealth/poverty situation? One of each???

How do you decide who deserves it most?
Every Faculty has different criteria. Entrance exams. Previous grades. Work experience. References. Sometimes interviews. The standards are different because the courses of study are different.

Marks don't tell you everything. For example, teachers who graduate in the top percentile from Education tend to be among the last chosen for teaching positions. Why? Because they also tend to be terrible at classroom management, and focus entirely on academics.

No, that's not reverse discrimination.

But if you have percentile targets to meet and use those targets to weight community service as more important, then it is.
Even if the program is in Community Development?:p Shouldn't previous experience be more important than grades that often have nothing to do with the program itself?

Nonetheless, applicants are often chosen over others based on factors other than grades. Again, things like volunteer work, work experience in the field, etc. There are often more applicants than there are spaces, and it doesn't always come down to grades. If someone 'gets your spot' because they spent hours in the community helping out, and you didn't, is that reverse discrimination?
If the importance of community service hours is equivalent to the importance of race and gender, then race and gender are more than just inconsequential and thus racism is okay because each race and gender has specific abilities or disabilities that means they should or should not be picked for a given job or school.

Even if the program is in Community Development?:p Shouldn't previous experience be more important than grades that often have nothing to do with the program itself?

Like I said - the grades and test scores should be 80 percent or more of the weight.

And it's ok to give some weight to Community Development - as long as every applicant had equal opportunity to perform Community Development prior to application.

But more importantly - never in order to meet percentile goals on the basis of race.

Every Faculty has different criteria. Entrance exams. Previous grades. Work experience. References. Sometimes interviews. The standards are different because the courses of study are different.

I have to say... as long as the entrance requirements are focusing on what someone has accomplished (be that test scores, volunteering, extracurriculars, etc.) instead of something neither they nor anyone else has any control over, such as ethnicity or gender, then personally I'm all for it. I'm not all about the exam. But as no one can control, say, their skin color... it should neither help nor hinder them.

I have to say... as long as the entrance requirements are focusing on what someone has accomplished (be that test scores, volunteering, extracurriculars, etc.) instead of something neither they nor anyone else has any control over, such as ethnicity or gender, then personally I'm all for it. I'm not all about the exam. But as no one can control, say, their skin color... it should neither help nor hinder them.
Skin colour helps or hinders you all the time in the real world. Why not in academia?

I don't think you understand. I'm supporting the concept that grades alone do not a good student make. Someone who flies through high school without breaking a sweat is not necessarily going to do well in University. I support the fact that other factors are taken into consideration at times. Schools need to know not only can their students get the grades, but can they hack the responsibility, do they have the tenacity to pursue their program even through personal difficulty, etc.but you have to admit, while there are some who use AA to get honest help, there are those that use AA to 'Cruize' through life. Just as some companies will honestly try to be fair and honest and others.... :rolleyes:

so basically, you have a good system that can be easily corrupted by anyone.

Skin colour helps or hinders you all the time in the real world. Why not in academia?

Academia is in the unique situation of being able to facilitate a change in this attitude. It's about hard work and excellence. I say education should say NO to any discrimination based on factors that have nothing to do with either.

but you have to admit, while there are some who use AA to get honest help, there are those that use AA to 'Cruize' through life. Just as some companies will honestly try to be fair and honest and others.... :rolleyes:

so basically, you have a good system that can be easily corrupted by anyone.
All systems are like that, unfortunately.

Having been on a number of hiring panels, it's truly shocking the kinds of things that come into play when choosing among applicants. Body odour. Speech patterns. Clothes. Oh, you could never prove it, unless someone actually went on record and said, 'we hired so an so because she smelled nicer than the other one', but it happens. What would be nice in terms of applications to school, or work, would be if no names were used at all (which are often ethnic indicators), no clue as to gender or age (as long as the applicant was old enough for the position) or anything that might bias the panel. How you'd get over that if an interview was required, I'm not sure. But snap judgements are often made based on the stupidest things.

As for cruising through life using affirmative action...I rather doubt it. There are no guarantees, regardless of your 'minority' or gender status. And getting in, doesn't mean you won't be expected to maintain satisfactory levels of work (or grades). As well, affirmative action programs are not nearly as pervasive or helpful as people think.

Don't say AA, I keep thinking you mean Alcoholics Anonymous:)

Academia is in the unique situation of being able to facilitate a change in this attitude. It's about hard work and excellence. And denying that factors such as insufficient access to education, or real life experience? I say education should say NO to any discrimination based on factors that have nothing to do with either.
An impossibility. Because race (and socioeconomics) still have a lot to do with the educational opportunities afforded to some, but not others. So what you are saying is, care only about those who get good grades, and ignore the fact that some people get those grades because they had better home lives, didn't have to work after school, or attended a school that didn't have chaos in the classrooms. It's not just about attitudes. It's also about life.

So what you are saying is, care only about those who get good grades, and ignore the fact that some people get those grades because they had better home lives, didn't have to work after school, or attended a school that didn't have chaos in the classrooms.

No, that is not what I'm saying. In fact, I said in an earlier post that I'm not in favor of admissions based only on exams. Let me now explicitly extend that remark to include grades. I am saying that I am very much in favor of admissions based only on what people have accomplished. That would include community involvement, athletics, showing initiative... any number of things.

IMO, private universities may do as they please. In the case of a public university, I am very much against any admissions factor based on race or gender. It seems we must agree to disagree on this one.

Um. You have a basic problem with your "rational industrialist" theory.

Most major companies have voluntary affirmative action programs. The rational choice has been to embrace what you say they shouldn't do.
Most major companies wouldn't be practicing voluntary affirmative action if you crazies hadn't suggested the idea in the first place. As I've already pointed out at least once, part of my problem with AA is the whole "fight fire with fire" proposition.

Nice to look back in hindsight and say civil rights were obvious.
Wait, what's that supposed to mean? Do you honestly expect me to beleive that LBJ deserves some kind of credit [to overshadow, say, Vietnam?] for saying to himself one day "gee, it's really not nice how people have been treating blacks in this country?" Yes Cat-Tribe it is nice to look back in hindisight and say civil rights were obvious because it was and it still is. When he was actually in power you guys were screaming bloody murder about his foreign policy, but thirty or forty years later he's all right? You wonder why liberals can't get votes in this country while you're running around apologising for idiots like LBJ who got us tangled up with shit with which we had no legitimate business? Next thing I know I'll be hearing you guys praising Bush in twenty or thirty years for his groundbreaking ideas about how we should handle immigrants and how quickly they should be put to work.

Too bad Barry Goldwater and other opponents of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 lacked "any wits." At the time, LBJ's moves to protect civil rights were bold new initiatives. At least be historically honest enough to recognize that.
Most of our politicians lack wits period, largely because a lot of our people do too. Just because something is a "bold new initiative" doesn't mean we should forget what the guy who was behind it actually did to this country.

Also, if he were "honest enough" about anything I have a feeling that the whole Vietnam situation would have been handled much differently. LBJ sensed changing attitudes on race [or someone in his cabinet did] and judged it prudent to try and cultivate this change. Politics in this country is little more than the business of getting people to like you, and any action's political expediency is judged by that standard. We shouldn't be so quick to make heroes out of politicians [LBJ, FDR anyone?] for that very reason. Their intentions are seldom cut and dry.

Meh. I appreciate that Johnson & co were trying to remedy a problem, but I think we need a new idea... one that doesn't try to fight injustice with more injustice. If it's wrong to discriminate on the basis of race or sex, it's wrong for everybody.

Now all we need to do is think of a better idea.

<thinking>

If sufficient numbers of industrialists were rational we might not, indeed, need such legislation. Unfortunately I am not convinced that they are generally so rational. Besides which, an equally rational business-person might have recognized that the second-class citizenship of blacks provided a mass of cheap, unprotected, and unorganized labor... in much the way that many business-people today support the status-quo immigration policy: hard-to-get citizenship, but with under-enforced borders. Nice, cheap labor.
And the legal framework for this policy [at least its current iteration] came about as the result of statist policies: not mine. Whether people are rational or not in their private lives is their business, not mine [or the government's]. My point here is that the State shouldn't go around making sure everyone is rational or productive or successful. That defeats living in a "free" country at its most basic level.

The "rationality" of business cannot often be counted upon to treat people as justice demands.
Now you're just grasping for straws. Look, the white collar folks in this country aren't [and never were] as gutless as your literature likely portrays them. We live in a more or less capitalist society--guess what? Our citizenry probably earns more money per year than any other comparably sized group on the planet. If business were so hostile to human survival, if it treated people "badly" [as you're suggesting here] there would be nary a well-paying job in sight: they'd all be interested in skirting the minimum wage laws and cutting whatever other corners they could. Some probably do but it's a bit ridiculous to suggest that it's a widespread thing.

Businesses in this country offer benefits now, many of which you'd never see in other countries. I got half my medical and dental insurance paid off by a mom and pop restaurant last time I got a job in one. Why? Because they could afford it and because the people in this country have money and are free to exchange it, especially for good food. In a socialist country, I would have to seek that coverage from the State, and I'd be put on a massive public waiting list whenever I needed to actually use it.

If you get to suggest that it's a flaw of capitalism that it allows businesses to be mean to people, I put it to you that these same flaws could be made worse under nearly any system you should care to conceive; if hiring managers and white collar workers are all assholes under capitalism, guess where they end up under Socialism? The government. Guess who does more damage where? Assholes in government. We hear all sorts of horror stories about exploitave industrialists, but we never hear about what might happen if, say, the director of the People's Planning Commission holds a grudge against $WORKER and bars his employment at every turn. In the first example, provided the country in question is a pure capitalist one, the problem should not be hard to solve. In the second, it might not be so easy.

I encourage racial awareness that combats racist attitudes. There is a clear difference, and it does you no credit to deny it.
Racism can't be done away with such simple tools; a lot of it is probably still instinctive even: twenty thousand years ago if you saw someone from another tribe, you didn't help them, you probably threw stones at him or some equally unpleasant thing. Humanity has been warring along racial lines for the majority of its civilized history, and the idea that it can be meaningfully "combatted" by means of a law that proposes to suggest hiring standards is a laughable one at best. If you want to encourage racial awareness, treat it as it deserves to be treated: as a cultural and educational issue, not a legislative one.

What the hell are you talking about?
If you can't tell you might want to quit while you're ahead. Or, more accurately, while you're as ahead as you're going to get.

I merely stated an historical relationship between the capitalist market and cultural values. To clarify: the market tends to have a liberalizing, relativizing effect. It bridles at censorship of traditionally "obscene" material (because it can sell it). It encourages cultural liberation of groups such as women or homosexuals, whom businesses believe can be turned into succesful markets. It loosens restrictions on children because it wants to expand their purchasing power.
Point? People want to make money. Did it ever occur to you that our "cultural values" might be along those lines too? Ever stop to look around and notice where it's gotten us?

I know, I know, the tendancy is to look around, shrug one's shoulders and say "This is where it's gotten us? A Bush presedency and $SOCIAL_PROBLEM after $SOCIAL_PROBLEM2?" but the fact of the matter is the planet as a whole is a hell of a lot better off than it has been throughout history; with a few minor political exceptions, we have things like a higher life expectancy, more freedoms and more money.

And who said anything about "expendable"? There are some values that capitalism attacks that I like, and some I don't.
Um, I did. I was pressing you to explain why, exactly, the right to property is such an expendable one.

You're reading things into what I say. (Historically, however, it was true up through the 1960s that the Christian right hated the corporate lobby, for exactly this reason. Their recent alliance is an interesting story in political history.)
If I'm "reading things into what you say," then one of two things must be the case: either


You're not suggesting property rights are expendable, in which case I'm correct and you lose the argument, basically [not that I don't think you already have].
or
You are suggesting they're expendable [which explains your stance on Affirmative Action and probably Socialism too], in which case I'm not" reading" into anything that isn't there.
So which is it?

That whole bunch of nonsense appears to be some perverted version of Locke's theory of property. I'll assume that's what you meant, unless you tell me otherwise.
You know, sometimes I think my debating technique works too well. I get people so riled up sometimes that they do something stupid like ignore all of my statements out of hand as "that whole bunch of nonsense" without bothering to explain why. You challenge my conceptions without having the intellectual fortitude to come forth with challenges of your own, which is what you're supposed to do in a debate of this nature. You can't just come around and say "That's a bunch of nonsense" and leave it at that.

Care to tell me how life isn't the root of value, or did you try that already and this was the best you could come up with?

You must be using a definition of "basic" with which I am unfamiliar, since the original, simplest societies were communal and had no conception of private property beyond the protection of personal possessions.
Point? The original, simplest societies probably engaged in cannibalism on more than one occasion, had no conceptions of rights and probably shit, fucked, and ate wherever they pleased, whenever they pleased. When did we start emulating savages? Are you actually trying to suggest that humanity reached its height of ethics during its infancy?

Oh, silly me, of course not. You haven't stated a position, you "never said anything like that" or "didn't mean it like that" or what-have you. Put the cave men out of your head for a minute and re-read that post again without rushing back to the stone age because you chose to latch on to the word "basic" instead of the word "value" which was what we were talking about.

Locke had the same problem: he took a positive right with great pragmatic value for a market society--property, because individuals need it to survive--and dressed it up as a "natural" right "ordained by God" (his words).
Locke, as with most philosophers, makes his mistakes here and there. Please don't assume that you can attack me philosophically by challenging Locke. I couldn't care less what "papers" you're "publishing" and would prefer if you could perhaps stick to actually adressing my arguments on [i]their merits, instead of on the merits of philosophers who lived a century [or more] before me.

Actually, precisely the opposite is true.
Let's examine this, shall we? By saying the "opposite is true" you're actually suggesting that a life model based on self-preservation cannot be practiced consistently and that a life model based on the preservation of others can.

Do humans feed themselves by administering foodstuffs to their neighbor? No. They feed themselves by eating it themselves--self preservation. Do we shelter ourselves from the elements by building a shelter for our neighbor? No. If we want to be protected, we get in there too--self preservation. Do we, in modern society, put food on the table by putting food on other people's tables? No. Obviously, this is a contradiction. Self preservation occurs on [at the very least] a biological level; the case for altruism in that regard is shaky at best.

Human beings appear, by all available evidence to be [I]innately social, moral beings. Everywhere we find them, we find them in society. Social relations do not appear, as you and Mr. Locke would have it, to be an expedient to personal gain, but rather of value in themselves. But if social relations are of value in themselves, then there must be a source of moral awareness rooted more deeply than pure self-interest.
Humans are social creatures, but that doesn't mean that we enjoy laboring for the benefit of others; it doesn't mean that my neighbor's life is the standard of my value. Again, you're lumping me in with Locke again probably more closely than I'm comfortable with, as I've not read much Locke and probably won't until later on.

Just because we prefer to be around people and like to have relationships is no justification for socialist policies.

Maybe. But most of them were from the North, imposing their policy on a South that was willing (sometimes violently) to oppose it.
"Maybe" nothing. You give all the credit to the minority lobbyists [who were, ironically, acting in their self-interest] and none to the voting public [who were, ironically, operating on a pretense of altrusim, albeit a potentially legitimate under the circumstances].

The only reason a company is able to do business is because society is organized to allow him to do so. Business depends on laws. Property depends on laws. Property in anything other than the immediate fruits of one's labor and personal possessions depends on having a society to defend it.
This is true to an extent, but society and laws are not the be-all end-all of human morality; if this were the case there would be little or no moral justification for things like the Renaissance, the American Revolution, or even our emergence from the Dark Ages [since the law was kind of hard on us atheists].

I'm sure you fancy yourself a progressive person, if that's the case it's odd to see such authoritarian undertones in your code of ethics. For all the spite you folks seem to have for the conservatives, you sure do seem to have a lot in common about the nature of rights and how they exist.

Look, if the government comes along and says "This isn't yours anymore" and takes away $POSSESSION for no discernable reason, that doesn't mean my right to property doesn't exist anymore, it just means its being breached. Ethics and morals are impervious to what your local armed mob thinks about them; they exist regardless and always will. As long as the armed mob is defunct in naming said morals and ethics, I will continue to correct it as long as I'm able.

But since the individual's property depends on society, he must be willing to accept the society's terms-of-use. Liberals such as myself interpret these widely, thinking that great freedom in property is beneficial to all; but when property becomes detrimental to the equality, stability, or freedom of all... then it is property that must be limited, not equality, stability, freedom... or the pursuit of happiness.
I'd like to know how you propose to "limit" property without limiting freedom or the pursuit of happiness. I think you'll discover it's not quite that easy.

Oh, and... people aren't equal by any discernable standards: they have different tastes, different abilities and preferences, different standards and perceptions: no one attribute exists for all of us to be quantified and determined "equal"--not ability, not compassion, not hate or hope or fear or love. People aren't equal, people are people and it's about goddamn time we started treating them like they were.

Due to recent scholarship, we have come to understand that LBJ, however bad a President he may have been, was not in fact evil.
You don't find it odd that a nation whose primary moral axiom is the 'Right to Life' sent soldiers to die by the thousand in Vietnam for a cause they had little or no emotional [or physical] stock in?

A lot knew racism was bad. How many were willing to pay the political price necessary to do anything about it?
Does it matter? If you weren't willing to "pay the price" for it, you had no business pretending racism was anything of a concern to begin with.

Tell me, how can you say quotas are illegal under affirmative action, when the university system in California up until recently was giving certain minorities a major break on test scores, etc., in order to reach "targets"?

A target is a goal. A company chooses to use all available legal means to pursue that goal, but if by legal means they do not achieve it, then they fall short and try harder next year.

A quota is a requirement. A company, failing legal means to achieve its quota, might resort to descrimination against non-minority applicants by hiring underqualified minorities. This is illegal.

You know what bothers me the most about this entire topic? Whether affirmative action exists in the state that many people imagine it or not, perceptions are coloured by the idea that 'minorities' and women are somehow unfairly being promoted over white males.

What generates that opinion? Affirmative Action, which does no such thing... or its opponents, who misconstrue it?

If the "perception" that Affirmative Action generates is its only problem, then its only problem is the dishonesty of its detractors.

If people understand what Affirmative Action does, but still persist in prejudiced attitudes about minorities, it is because they are racists. If people do not understand what Affirmative Action does, that is because right-wing reactionaries have engaged in a crusade to confuse the issue.

In either case, the problem is not Affirmative Action.

It shows in the graduation rate at those schools - they still can't get them to match the graduation rate - perhaps it's because they aren't qualified.

See my post several pages back on the vast improvements in minority graduation rates. Your imaginary point: debunked.

Affirmative Action benefits qualified applicants only. For this reason, minority graduation rates are improving right along with minority admissions rates, which in turn is due in large part to Affirmative Action.

I agree. I've seen plenty of women who could meet the male physical standards. Why make different standards? Just say, "to be an artillery soldier you have to be able to lift and carry x number of 155mm shells in x minutes from point A to point B".

Here's the problem: It is not a different standard.

The qualification being tested is one of physical fitness. And since men's and women's body's are different, the tests to determine physical fitness in a man are different than the tests to determine physical fitness in a woman.

Again, it is the sexist prejudice of men that causes them to emphasize the apparent difference in test "scores" rather than the substantive issue of qualification.

Studies indicate that they are the primary indicator of whether or not you're going to graduate once admitted.

Tests and grades.

It is a waste of precious educational resources to send someone to school who by the statistics isn't going to make it to the end.

"College admission tests in general, and the SAT (formerly the Scholastic Aptitude Test) in particular, have been criticized for deficiencies in accurately predicting academic performance in college (Grouse and Trusheim 1988).There are several alleged faults of the SAT. First, black and Latino students consistently earn significantly lower SAT scores than white students, yet graduate with college grade point averages and class ranks that are not significantly different from white students with higher SAT scores (Gandara and Lopez 1998; Lawlor and Richman 1997). Second, the SAT displays little power beyond other readily available indicators (such as high school grades) to predict college grade point averages (Baron and Frank 1992; Grouse &Trusheim 1988).And finally, the ability of the SAT to forecast academic performance beyond the first semester or first year in college has not been established (Ramist, Lewis and McCamley-Jenkins 1994; Schwartz 1999)."

http://www.looksmartcollegesports.com/p/articles/mi_qa3955/is_200007/ai_n8897635

Do you have any interest in reality, or is fantasyland as happy as it seems?

but you have to admit, while there are some who use AA to get honest help, there are those that use AA to 'Cruize' through life. Just as some companies will honestly try to be fair and honest and others...

How exactly would one "use" Affirmative Action to "cruise" through life? That doesn't make any sense.

How exactly would one "use" Affirmative Action to "cruise" through life? That doesn't make any sense.
Let's face it -- there are a lot of people out there who just don't like to share, and people who don't like to share really hate being made to share. These people who claim there are hoardes of lazy, swarthy people "cruising" through life on affirmative action, just can't stand the idea that anybody in the world might get something ahead of them. You can tell by the way they shout affirmative action anytime a black person or a woman gets a job they wanted, regardless of whether it was an affirmative action situation or not.

We live in a more or less capitalist society--guess what? Our citizenry probably earns more money per year than any other comparably sized group on the planet.

Well, there are variations by occupation... and we also work more hours than people in any other post-industrial economy... but that is, largely, true.

Of course, the superprofits that make employee benefits possible are generated largely by the capitalist rape of the Third World, but that's another story.

If business were so hostile to human survival, if it treated people "badly" [as you're suggesting here] there would be nary a well-paying job in sight:

Trying to pull a fast one? We both know that salaries are just as much subject to the laws of supply and demand as any other prices. Well-paying jobs exist where qualified labor is relatively scarce... and guess what? Any "rational" manager knows to pay his employees as little as he can get away with, lest he lose out to a competitor who pays less. He will pay exactly what he needs to attract the labor he needs. Any more is out of the "kindness of his heart". It happens, but I doubt it's the norm.

they'd all be interested in skirting the minimum wage laws and cutting whatever other corners they could.

Laughable. The only reason there are minimum wage laws is because without them, employers would pay unskilled laborers so little that they could barely survive. Hell, many of them barely survive with a minimum wage.

The Founders of this country believed that the United States economy could avoid the "European conditions" of an urban poor and merciless corporations unwilling to pay them a living wage. They believed, as you apparently do, that the market could regulate itself.

What most modern libertarians miss when they read the Founders (if they actually read them) is that they had a practical reason for believing that United States capitalism could be different than what they saw in Europe. They believed that with their small population and readily available land, it would be possible for any urban laborer to "escape" to set up his own subsistence farm. Free land was a "natural" inflationary force on wages, a "safety valve" on the pressures of class conflict.

Of course, they failed to predict the onset of industrial capitalism and the changes it would bring to the economy. They failed to see that the "natural" safety valve would not last forever. When it had finally become abundantly clear that it had failed, that is when the United States instituted minimum wages to act as an "artificial" force to improve wages and stave off violent class conflict.

In a socialist country, I would have to seek that coverage from the State, and I'd be put on a massive public waiting list whenever I needed to actually use it.

We're arguing about Affirmative Action now, not socialism. As it happens, I have a socialist leaning... but I also value market liberty. Thus, my view is far more complex than can be handled in a brief explanation, and will only serve to further radically sidetrack the discussion. So, let's just leave socialism out of it.

Racism can't be done away with such simple tools; a lot of it is probably still instinctive even: twenty thousand years ago if you saw someone from another tribe, you didn't help them, you probably threw stones at him or some equally unpleasant thing. Humanity has been warring along racial lines for the majority of its civilized history, and the idea that it can be meaningfully "combatted" by means of a law that proposes to suggest hiring standards is a laughable one at best.

First of all, "tribe" is different than "race." The history of race as we know it is intimately bound up with the history of African slavery, and something approaching the modern (racist) conception of "race" did not appear until the early nineteenth century.

Aggression is instinctive; racism is not.

Secondly... below, don't you criticize me for bringing up "cave men"?

the fact of the matter is the planet as a whole is a hell of a lot better off than it has been throughout history; with a few minor political exceptions, we have things like a higher life expectancy, more freedoms and more money.

That depends very much on where you're standing.

either


You're not suggesting property rights are expendable, in which case I'm correct and you lose the argument, basically [not that I don't think you already have].
or
You are suggesting they're expendable [which explains your stance on Affirmative Action and probably Socialism too], in which case I'm not" reading" into anything that isn't there.
So which is it?

Neither. It's a false dilemma. While I maintain that property is founded not on natural right, but on positive law, I still maintain a doctrine of property rights that hardly considers them "expendable." However, because I understand property as founded on positive law, I understand that property rights are more flexible and less doctrinaire than you would have them. Property exists for the good of humankind, not the other way around.

You challenge my conceptions without having the intellectual fortitude to come forth with challenges of your own, which is what you're supposed to do in a debate of this nature. You can't just come around and say "That's a bunch of nonsense" and leave it at that.

Nor have I. Indeed, I struggle to understand how it is that you apparently miss every positive argument that I make... perhaps you ignore the parts you don't understand?

Care to tell me how life isn't the root of value, or did you try that already and this was the best you could come up with?

"Life is the root of value" is either a worthless truism ("only living things value anything"), or it is the fruit of some shallow sophistry designed to show... what?

When did we start emulating savages? Are you actually trying to suggest that humanity reached its height of ethics during its infancy?

We are not "emulating" "savages" at all. The argument arose because you claim that private property is a natural right because it is necessary to the preservation of life. I gave a counter-example of societies--indeed, the original and longest-lasting societies--that managed to survive perfectly well without private property. If it is going to be called a natural right, it requires some other explanation than that that is is vital to the preservation of life and the pursuit of happiness. That may be true in a market society... but that only proves what I have claimed from the start, that property rights are a positive expedient to life in a market society--not a natural right.

Locke, as with most philosophers, makes his mistakes here and there.

He makes more than a few. His entire political philosophy rests on fundamental ambiguities in his conception of human nature.

Please don't assume that you can attack me philosophically by challenging Locke.

I am not "assuming" it, I am reaching that conclusion based on the fact that you seem to be espousing a version of the Lockean theory of property and accumulation. Locke, at any rate, did a better job of it than you have... so if I can defeat the stronger argument (his), why bother with the weaker?

I couldn't care less what "papers" you're "publishing" and would prefer if you could perhaps stick to actually adressing my arguments

My apologies. I am doing the best I can within the confines of the discussion. I refer to my pending paper because, in it, you will find a much more thorough exigesis of the essential issues, spanning some 60 pages rather than several posts. I wish I could give it to you now to expedite the process... but I'll certainly try to let you know when it is available. We shall have to wait on my editors. Until then, half-arguments will have to suffice.

Let's examine this, shall we? By saying the "opposite is true" you're actually suggesting that a life model based on self-preservation cannot be practiced consistently and that a life model based on the preservation of others can.

Actually, what I'm suggesting is that a life-model based solely on self-preservation is overly narrow (and, on a close examination, probably self-contradictory). You like to pretend that human psychology begins and ends with the self. The fact of the matter is that the "self" only emerges as the result of interactions with others, and erotic (loving) motivations towards them, on such a basic level that it is impossible--and certainly impractical--to separate them. You earnestly insist that "ethics" rests on some firmer foundation than positive morality. I agree. But no "ethics" worthy of the name can rest on self-preservation without the assumption that other people have value... too.

Actually, that's a good way to put it, and it is in accord with most of the great theories of ethical obligation. "I matter most... but others matter, too."

Do humans feed themselves by administering foodstuffs to their neighbor? No. They feed themselves by eating it themselves--self preservation.

Yes, but they may well grow their food together.

Do we shelter ourselves from the elements by building a shelter for our neighbor? No. If we want to be protected, we get in there too--self preservation.

That's right: we get in there too. More importantly, you are missing the inclination to, having built a shelter, invite your exposed neighbor to share it. (We may manage to talk ourselves out of this... but most of us have to admit that the basic sense of pity is there.)

Self preservation occurs on [at the very least] a biological level; the case for altruism in that regard is shaky at best.

Not at all. A "wild" human raised without human contact in the wilderness might, perhaps, practice self-preservation alone with no "social" sense at all. But normal human beings, raised the way nature intended, have a sense of pity--a "natural repugnance to see any sensitive being suffer or perish" as Rousseau called it--that we feel at the most basic ontological level.

Indeed, ethical evolutionists have proposed a plausible evolutionary explanation for this: what "survival" is really all about, from the perspective of nature, is not individual's but genes. Nature thus selects for genes that have an altruistic function: they may even be willing to sacrifice the particular individual in which they rest so that related inviduals, indeed the whole species, can survive.

Only a naive view of human nature and the preservative instinct--one that ignores both experience and science--can suppose that the individual is the proper unit of analysis.

You don't find it odd that a nation whose primary moral axiom is the 'Right to Life' sent soldiers to die by the thousand in Vietnam for a cause they had little or no emotional [or physical] stock in?

I do. But it would be naive to blame one man for it, especially when the historical record shows that his problem was not so much bad decision making in foreign policy, but a faulty method for "testing" reality: he was blinded to what was actually going on. (There is a great book on this subject, called "How Presidents Test Reality," comparing Eisenhower's and Johnson's responses to crises in Vietnam.) Again: bad President; not evil.

Does it matter? If you weren't willing to "pay the price" for it, you had no business pretending racism was anything of a concern to begin with.

What are you saying here? The point has been only this: that whatever previous Presidents may have thought about race, Johnson was the first one to really do anything about it. He deserves at least some credit for that.

Most major companies wouldn't be practicing voluntary affirmative action if you crazies hadn't suggested the idea in the first place. As I've already pointed out at least once, part of my problem with AA is the whole "fight fire with fire" proposition

Rational industrialists et al can't help but follow the suggestions of "crazies"? Not very rational are they?

So industrialists et al are rational and should be left to make the choices in a free market .... but not if they make choices you disagree with. How very convenient.

You can't have it both ways, Melkor.


Wait, what's that supposed to mean? Do you honestly expect me to beleive that LBJ deserves some kind of credit [to overshadow, say, Vietnam?] for saying to himself one day "gee, it's really not nice how people have been treating blacks in this country?" Yes Cat-Tribe it is nice to look back in hindisight and say civil rights were obvious because it was and it still is. When he was actually in power you guys were screaming bloody murder about his foreign policy, but thirty or forty years later he's all right? You wonder why liberals can't get votes in this country while you're running around apologising for idiots like LBJ who got us tangled up with shit with which we had no legitimate business? Next thing I know I'll be hearing you guys praising Bush in twenty or thirty years for his groundbreaking ideas about how we should handle immigrants and how quickly they should be put to work.

Most of our politicians lack wits period, largely because a lot of our people do too. Just because something is a "bold new initiative" doesn't mean we should forget what the guy who was behind it actually did to this country.

Also, if he were "honest enough" about anything I have a feeling that the whole Vietnam situation would have been handled much differently. LBJ sensed changing attitudes on race [or someone in his cabinet did] and judged it prudent to try and cultivate this change. Politics in this country is little more than the business of getting people to like you, and any action's political expediency is judged by that standard. We shouldn't be so quick to make heroes out of politicians [LBJ, FDR anyone?] for that very reason. Their intentions are seldom cut and dry.

1. Meh. This is an extended ad hominem. Affirmative action = LBJ. LBJ = Vietnam. Vietnam = Bad. Accordingly, LBJ = Bad and, therefore, Affirmative action = Bad. Who originally introduced affirmative action is irrelevant.

2. One can praise a politician for one thing and criticize him for another. It isn't that hard a concept to grasp.

3. You still haven't denied that LBJ was bold and courageous in taking on segregation when he did.

4. You say civil rights laws are obvious to anyone that isn't an idiot. But then you oppose them.

5. You say we should leave things to the rational choices of individuals, but then you say that most people are idiots.

Meh. I appreciate that Johnson & co were trying to remedy a problem, but I think we need a new idea... one that doesn't try to fight injustice with more injustice. If it's wrong to discriminate on the basis of race or sex, it's wrong for everybody.

Now all we need to do is think of a better idea.

<thinking>

1. How about outreach programs, targeted at specific groups, to notify them of education, employment and contracting opportunities? Oh, wait. That is affirmative action also.

2. Are you also opposed to affirmative action for veterans? Or does your insistence on "merit" have limits?

Dammit. Once again, I've been away from the discussion too long.

Luckily I find that AnarchyeL and Sinuhue have already covered all the important points for me.

Academia is in the unique situation of being able to facilitate a change in this attitude. It's about hard work and excellence. I say education should say NO to any discrimination based on factors that have nothing to do with either.

As I tried to explain in my opening post, much of what affirmative action is about is requiring a stricter focus on merits. This tries to ensure that underqualified majorities don't get in over qualified minorities.

As to what you call "discrimination," if there are more qualified candidates than there are slots somebody isn't going to get in. We know from statistics and studies that a disproprortionate amount of white males will get in anyway. Among equally qualified students, it is not improper or racist to select students that will make your school population more representative.

If you eliminate affirmative action, you would be shutting minorities out of college. This is exactly what has happened in California when affirmative action was banned via proposition. In fact, without affirmative action the percentage of black students at many selective schools would drop to only 2% of the student body. This would effectively choke off black access to top universities and severely restrict progress toward racial equality.

At the same time, if half of the people of color who are admitted to schools under affirmative action programs were cut, the acceptance rates of white men would only increase by 2%.

You act as if racism does not exist it. It does.

Moreoever, educational opportunities are not equivalent. For example, read Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060974990/103-0345811-1703011?v=glance) by Jonathan Kozol. The book should make you either cry or throw up. Minority children attending schools literally filled with sewage up to the second floor. In Illinios, for another example, per-capita education spending in the state varies from $18,000 to less than $5,000 per year. Guess where the minority students go to school.

You say we should leave things to the rational choices of individuals, but then you say that most people are idiots.

Silly Cat-Tribe. You just don't get it. People are "rational" if they own capital, and "irrational" or stupid if they do not. ;)

And he claims not to be a Lockean!! This is precisely one of the two great ambiguities in Locke that C.B. Macpherson notices in his classic introduction to the Second Treatise.

Here's the problem: It is not a different standard.

The qualification being tested is one of physical fitness. And since men's and women's body's are different, the tests to determine physical fitness in a man are different than the tests to determine physical fitness in a woman.

Again, it is the sexist prejudice of men that causes them to emphasize the apparent difference in test "scores" rather than the substantive issue of qualification.

Exactically!

Moreoever, there are many aspects of physical fitness -- such as flexibility -- where women on average have an advantage over men. Although such aspects of fitness may be relevant to service, our male-tilted society doesn't focus on those criteria. If they did, they would require a lower standard for men than for women. (Particularly as there is often a trade-off between some standards of fitness such as strength and others such as flexibility.)

What I find baffling is the assumption that (a) the standards that the military sets for men are the right standards but (b) the military doesn't realize it has set the "wrong" standards for women. Either the standards for both are open to question or they are not.

Like I said - the grades and test scores should be 80 percent or more of the weight.

And it's ok to give some weight to Community Development - as long as every applicant had equal opportunity to perform Community Development prior to application.

But more importantly - never in order to meet percentile goals on the basis of race.

DK, you continue to play slight of hand and treat flexible goals as if they were quotas.

You must know that the Department of Labor regulations are extremely clear on the difference. Only narrowly tailored flexible goals based on the percentage of qualified candidates are permissible. Quotas are not:

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/ofccp/aa.htm

The numerical goals are established based on the availability of qualified applicants in the job market or qualified candidates in the employer’s work force. Executive Order numerical goals do not create set-asides for specific groups, nor are they designed to achieve proportional representation or equal results. Rather, the goal-setting process in affirmative action planning is used to target and measure the effectiveness of affirmative action efforts to eradicate and prevent discrimination. The Executive Order and its supporting regulations do not authorize OFCCP to penalize contractors for not meeting goals. The regulations at 41 CFR 60-2.12(e), 60-2.30 and 60-2.15, specifically prohibit quota and preferential hiring and promotions under the guise of affirmative action numerical goals. In other words, discrimination in the selection decision is prohibited.

If law X strictly forbids Y, you can't honestly argue that law X is bad because it requires Y.

If the playing field were level and if anti-discrimination laws truly always prevented discrimination, then things would be different. Althought there would still be a case for pursuing diversity.

But those prerequistes don't exist. Anti-discrimination laws have long proven inadequate to end racism. For instance, all else being equal, color-blind seniority systems tend to protect white workers against job layoffs, because senior employees are usually white. Likewise, color-blind college admissions favor white students because of their earlier educational advantages. Unless preexisting inequities are corrected or otherwise taken into account, color-blind policies do not correct racial injustice -- they reinforce it.

And affirmative action is one of the best ways to level the educational playing field and end discrimination. Having diversity in positions of power and influence will help the most.

Several studies have documented important gains in racial and gender equality as a direct result of affirmative action

The hegemony of power and privilege is one of the root causes of racism and minority disadvantage. In other words, lack of diversity is one of the root causes of racism and minority disadvantage.

Affirmative action works. It is increasing diversity. It is distributing opportunities more proportionately -- and actually expanding opportunities for all.

Well, "qualified pool" means essentially that: everyone in it meets the qualifications for the job. To call any of them "unqualified" is blatantly disingenuous.

However, to call them "equally qualified" is somewhat problematic. I will endeavor to clarify my position.

Let's consider, for the sake of argument, admissions to a university.

Ordinarily, as a first stage in the admissions process, universities establish certain "minimum" requirements for admission--minimum GPA and SAT. (Since students may have high GPAs but low SATs, or vice versa, universities usually simplify by first assigning "scores" to each, then ranking students according to the total score.) These can be somewhat flexible, as admissions officers may be asked to review an application with a particularly eloquent essay or fantastic recommendations which does not otherwise meet the standards... but essentially, there is some established minimum qualifications.

The students who meet these qualifications form the pool of "qualified applicants." According to the experience and best estimates of admissions personnel, they should all be able to succeed in the university's course work.

Of course, some students may be exceptionally well qualified. Let's say these students have straight-A's and score over 1550 on their SATs, with good recommendations and essays. The University may distinguish these students by setting a high standard for "automatic" admission. At this phase, considerations other than "pure" merit usually do not enter into the calculation.

These students, naturally, do not fill every available seat for admission. There remain a large number of unfilled positions... and of course a larger number of fully qualified applicants.

Now, these applicants have a variety of scores, grades, and other qualifications. Some may stand out, on paper, from others. However, from experience and scientific study, admissions personnel know that these differences don't "mean" anything, statistically. Each applicant in this pool, despite their many differences, is equally likely to succeed at the university as every other applicant. While certainly not true in fact, it is true as far as the admissions officer can tell.

Thus, from the perspective of the admissions officer, they are all "equally qualified."


I suppose that if you see enough college applications, you could group them into large groups of "qualified" and "well-qualified" without there being much distinction between groups. (I would suggest, however, that there is a certain level of well-informed evaluation that goes into college admissions, such that an evaluator can usually intuit how well a student will do in college coursework based on grades, activities, their essay, etc.) In this case, though, I think my point still stands: Even among the people in the "qualified pool", there is competition/distinction between those who have "automatic acceptance" and those who fall somewhere else on the bell curve. The competition doesn't end simply in the pool of qualified applicants, because, as you point out, there are a limited number of seats.

In respect to "fairness", I think you make a significant mistake: The issue isn't necessarily whether an applicant subjectively considers a criteria fair. The issue is whether it is, in fact fair. In other words, if you set out a system that says: "We're going to evaluate you based on standardized tests, and whomever has the highest score wins." then that is "fair", because it's an unbiased way of measuring achievement potential. The test isn't being administered to see if a student can stage a come-from-behind rally with their grades, or whether they work hard to get the grades they get. It's administered to determine if they have knowledge of the areas being tested. In a real sense, fairness can be imposed on the process, even if it doesn't seem "fair" to the person going through it.

I think the employment example is more instructive, though: In that scenario, you're competing for one seat, so there isn't any such thing as people you pick up on a second go round. You have to pick the best person out of the people who are qualified, so, among the qualified people, the competition is still fierce. In fact, I would argue that it's more fierce, because once you get into the qualified pool, you're competition is, by definition, more highly skilled. Under those circumstances, it makes less sense to select a candidate based on an essentially meaningless (at least, from a performance standpoint) criteria like race, gender, handicap, or what have you. i.e., it makes no sense to pick the minority because he or she is a minority, even if your company is predominately white and male. The right thing to do in such a circumstance is to pick the person who has demonstrated (through their resume', references, etc.) the best skills. Might it be a close call? Of course. Hiring decisions are rarely slam dunks. But that is, I think, the best thing for a company, and probably the best thing for society in general. Merit is what matters.

Now, I'm not saying discrimination isn't a problem and that it shouldn't be addressed as a matter of public policy. If a person can be found to have discriminated on the basis of a protected status (race, nationality, handicap, whatever) that person should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. But the proper way to address the inequality in the workforce and in higher education entails better education at the lower levels for the disadvantaged. Schools across the country, in every socio-economic level, should be told that failure is unacceptable. IMO, this starts with abolishing anything that protects incompetent teachers (e.g., teacher's unions, tenure). If a teacher's students perpetually fail, that teacher should be out of a job -- no questions asked, no excuses accepted. If that means more money needs to be spent on schools, then that's fine, but the policy should precede the money. In other words, not a penny more should be spent on teachers that haven't proven themselves. Education isn't simply a matter of throwing money around. If you can't teach with a $30 book, what in the world makes you think you could teach with a $3000 computer?

Affirmative action works. It is increasing diversity. It is distributing opportunities more proportionately -- and actually expanding opportunities for all.

and this is the actual driving force behind complaints about affirmative action.

In respect to "fairness", I think you make a significant mistake: The issue isn't necessarily whether an applicant subjectively considers a criteria fair. The issue is whether it is, in fact fair. In other words, if you set out a system that says: "We're going to evaluate you based on standardized tests, and whomever has the highest score wins." then that is "fair", because it's an unbiased way of measuring achievement potential.

Only if you assume that the test is an accurate enough predictor of "achievement potential" that just by ticking down the list of scores you can differentiate applicants. Do you really believe that a student who scores 1300 on the SAT is necessarily more qualified than a student who scores 1200? Admissions personnel certainly don't think so. And unless that is the case, a "test-only" method of admission is inherently unfair.

In a real sense, fairness can be imposed on the process, even if it doesn't seem "fair" to the person going through it.

No. Unless you can literally read the soul of your applicants to evaluate accomplishment and potential, there is no such thing as a purely fair evaluation. All the "measures" that admissions personnel use are designed to give evidence of what may be a student's real accomplishment and potential.

I think the employment example is more instructive, though: In that scenario, you're competing for one seat, so there isn't any such thing as people you pick up on a second go round.

What makes you assume you are competing for "one" seat? Even in academia, in which the number of positions is unusually small, a hiring process may select for more than one position. My own department just held job talks, as a result of which we are offering jobs to two of the applicants. So, I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

But that is, I think, the best thing for a company, and probably the best thing for society in general. Merit is what matters.

Then why do so many companies practice voluntary Affirmative Action programs (from among qualified applicants)? So far, no one in this discussion has been able to explain why businesses like to promote diversity, if it is so inherently bad for them.

But the proper way to address the inequality in the workforce and in higher education entails better education at the lower levels for the disadvantaged.

Agreed, in part. The problem is that these are related issues. Educational achievement at lower levels has been tied to factors such as parents' achievement and occupation. In other words, even when the schools are doing their job, minority students suffer academically when they lack a supportive home environment.

By increasing the number of minority students who attend and graduate college, we are acting to improve the educational opportunities, at lower levels, of their children.

Schools across the country, in every socio-economic level, should be told that failure is unacceptable. IMO, this starts with abolishing anything that protects incompetent teachers (e.g., teacher's unions, tenure). If a teacher's students perpetually fail, that teacher should be out of a job -- no questions asked, no excuses accepted.

I truly wish it were that simple.

My uncle is a high school principal, and he perpetually deals with the efforts of state and local efforts to hold teachers "accountable." It actually has the opposite of its intended effect.

Why? Because when you tell a teacher, "if too many students fail, you are out of a job," that increases the pressure for the teacher to "pass through" students who are not prepared for advancement or to go "easy" on evaluations. (Standardized testing at all levels has not helped, either, because teachers instruct their students on how to take the test rather than the knowledge actually tested--much like expensive SAT/LSAT/GRE "prep" courses emphasize tricks to identify correct answers without necessarily understanding why they are correct.)

Consider what happens... the first grade teacher passes through a few students who are not ready for second grade. Now it is the second-grade teacher who is "accountable" for their passing. So what happens? They slide... and a few more may join them. By the time you get to the high schools, you have a large population of students that have not mastered basic math and reading skills. For the high school teachers to hold the students accountable, however, they would have to put their own jobs on the line. No one wants to be the teacher who stands up for standards when they might be fired for it.

Some notion of such "accountability," I will admit, would be a good thing. Perhaps if teachers were given the resources necessary to provide attention to the students who need it most, they could actually help them rather than feeling compelled to "pass them through." Unfortunately, most demands for teacher "accountability" have NOT been accompanied by the resources (money) necessary to hire staff to make sure all students can be taught.

If that means more money needs to be spent on schools, then that's fine, but the policy should precede the money. In other words, not a penny more should be spent on teachers that haven't proven themselves.

Precisely the problem. The schools need the money to do their jobs.

Education isn't simply a matter of throwing money around. If you can't teach with a $30 book, what in the world makes you think you could teach with a $3000 computer?

Fuck the computer. (And since when has any school obtained a $3000 computer? They tend to get whatever is on the verge of obsolescence.) What schools need are more teachers, thus smaller class sizes, and staff trained to educate students with special needs. Of course, this staff costs MUCH more than books or computers. If you're not willing to pay for them, then forget about "teacher accountability." You cannot justly hold them accountable for circumstances beyond their control.

and this is the actual driving force behind complaints about affirmative action.
And THAT is a gross overstatement. My own complaints about affirmitive action have absolutely nothing to do with any objection to a more equal distribution of opportunities...quite the opposite, in fact.

Skin colour helps or hinders you all the time in the real world. Why not in academia?
Well, physical attractiveness helps or hinders you all the time in the real world, so why shouldn't a woman's breast size or a man's hairline be considered in their academic career?

Personally, I would prefer to see people set HIGHER standards rather than justifying the lowest possible standards with, "But everybody else is doing it!"

Well, physical attractiveness helps or hinders you all the time in the real world, so why shouldn't a woman's breast size or a man's hairline be considered in their academic career?

Personally, I would prefer to see people set HIGHER standards rather than justifying the lowest possible standards with, "But everybody else is doing it!"
I was being facetious. Attempting, via sarcasm, to point out that skin colour makes a huge difference in real life. However, there IS a difference between the following two scenarios. See if you can pick them out:

A University program did a study and realised that no aboriginals had been admitted to the program in the past 10 years. Not for lack of applications, but generally for lack of recent grades. Most of the applicants had been out of school for 10 years or so, while other, younger applicants had more recent grades to use in the application process, applying straight out of high school. The program hires someone full time to find out which older high school courses meet the same requirements as new ones, allowing aboriginal applicants to use their grades as equivalent to the grades in newer courses. As well, a self-imposed target of 3% to eventually 5% aboriginal students is set.

Three applicants apply for a job. All three have equivalent work experience. Two are white, and one is aboriginal. One of interviewers has a concern about the aboriginal applicant, since it is 'well known that natives tend to drink and disappear for days on end', so perhaps it would be better to hire one of the white applicants.

Which one is racism, and which is affirmative action? And no. They aren't the same thing.

Many of you have made excellent points about injustice. While I agree 100% that life ain't fair, I disagree that affirmative action programs are a good way to try and combat social injustice. I am opposed to college and job entrance selection, workplace benefits, and a whole host of other goodies being based on anything other than individual achievement (however the institution in question defines that).

I believe hard work is the key to success, and the entire debate about who should "get" what is misplaced. Give people the message - even subtly - that they need extra help in order to succeed, and you handicap them for life. They will never be able to own their own success.

Just so we're all clear, I am a female. And a veteran. And a working single mom. Who grew up in Appalachia, the only disadvantaged place in the US it's still politically correct to make fun of. So yes, I'm intimately and personally aware that prejudice exists. This isn't me whining about what other people are taking away from me. This is me saying, "Keep it. I don't need it. Anyone who is misguided and misogynistic enough to think that I do has another think coming." I know the harm that the perception of favoritism can cause, both for the recipient and the denied. I have experienced it firsthand, and would not wish it on anyone else.

The US is supposed to be about equal opportunity. There is no denying that some people grow up in terrible situations which hamper their access and achievement. But the government has no business trying to remedy that situation by forcibly applying another layer of injustice. If promoting a man because he's male is wrong, it's just as wrong to promote a woman because she's female. If choosing a white student based on race is wrong, choosing a black student based on race is equally wrong.

Want to tackle the great divides in our country? Work on eliminating poverty. That's the real social evil, IMO.

Well, physical attractiveness helps or hinders you all the time in the real world, so why shouldn't a woman's breast size or a man's hairline be considered in their academic career?

There was actually some research quite recently that discovered that physical attractiveness affects students' end-of-semester evaluations of a professor's performance. The effect exists for both male and female professors, although it is more pronounced for women.

So, unfortunately, physical attractiveness does affect our careers, at least insofar as they are helped or hindered by student evaluations. :(

A further instance of a painfully simple argument. Race ought not to be an issue oin the profferation of jobs, academic qualifications, and, to a considerably lesser extent, experience, ought to be the sole factor in consideration, concurrent to the general presentability of the candidate, encorporating elocution, posture and bearing, all of which are critical to a professional career.

I know the harm that the perception of favoritism can cause, both for the recipient and the denied. I have experienced it firsthand, and would not wish it on anyone else.

The perception of favoritism is due, not to Affirmative Action policies which only benefit qualified candidates, but prejudice.

Before Affirmative Action, prejudiced men would say, "I wonder who she slept with to get this job." Affirmative Action just provided them a new excuse for sexism: the language has changed, the attitude has not.

If you eliminate Affirmative Action, they will just go right back to wondering who you slept with. Worse, they will be working with that many fewer women who can prove them wrong by actually doing the job.

If a woman (or black or other minority) actually demonstrates poor job performance, then white male employees have every right to be suspicious and concerned. But if those men judge you without (or despite) your job performance, then they are the problem, not the programs that seek to ensure that women and minorities gain the access to jobs and education that they have earned.

If a woman (or black or other minority) actually demonstrates poor job performance, then white male employees have every right to be suspicious and concerned. But if those men judge you without (or despite) your job performance, then they are the problem, not the programs that seek to ensure that women and minorities gain the access to jobs and education that they have earned.

At the expense of the majority naturally, however their sacrosanct right to equality is only tenable insofar as the minorites remain superior legally no?

A further instance of a painfully simple argument. Race ought not to be an issue oin the profferation of jobs, academic qualifications, and, to a considerably lesser extent, experience, ought to be the sole factor in consideration, concurrent to the general presentability of the candidate, encorporating elocution, posture and bearing, all of which are critical to a professional career.

It sounds nice in theory. I wish the world could be that way.

Unfortunately, the available research has shown that fully qualified and capable minority applicants remain underrepresented in the workforce and academia, largely due to disparities in "academic qualifications" and experience that, so far as the best research can tell, do not bear on their ability to perform on a par with white candidates.

In such a world, "color-blindness" is racism, because it amounts to acquiescence in the white-dominated status-quo.

Zero out of three. A bunch of non-arguments to justify a non-solution to a non-problem.

Firstly, "underrepresentation" is not a problem in itself, and no one has shown any evidence that it does constitute a problem, or that it leads to problems.

If an actual case of the government discriminating against someone on specific, irrelevant grounds, then action needs to be related to the specific problem. If it takes the form of a government official practicing the discrimination himself (a DMV offiicial unilaterally refuses to pass blacks on a driving test that they should have rightfully passed), then the official needs to be punished, and other personnel made aware that such conduct cannot be tolerated. If it is specific policy, or legislation, then it needs to be overturned by the consititutional means available.

If we are talking about private sector discrimination, then it is no concern of anyone is a shopkeeper refuses to servew gays, or an employer refuses to take on hispanics. If someone wants to deny himself customers, or deny his company good employees, then that merely creates opportunities for others. In any case, one cannot rectify this without effectively stealing the property of the person in question.


Uh-huh, unless said discrimination is wide-spread and the government has a compelling interest in action so as to protect its citizens. Equality of outcome is NOT a right. Equality of opportunity IS.


In other words, private sector affirmative action amounts to the government saying "if you hold unfashionable attitudes, your property will be stolen".

Call me strange, but that sounds more like National Socialist Germany, or the USSR, than the USA.

Oh, hey, "I can't make a good argument so I'll invoke the specter of Nazis and Commies." How about you address the actually policies instead of accusing people looking to correct an imbalance of being Nazis and Commies?

I also find it amusing (and by amusing I actually mean sad and disquieting) that you call pointing out the very real and very obvious level of inequity in our country that obviously favors the white male (of which I am one) racist. To point out that white men are the only Presidents and Vice-Presidents we've EVER had is not racist, it's factual. To point out the white males have a disproportionate amount of wealth in this country is to be factual. To point out that this disproportion is DIRECTLY linked to the historical inequalities created by the legal and social discrimination against everyone who was not a white male is to be factual.

Having established that no problem exists, let us look at your solution. Affirmative action. giving preferences to groups that have good lobbyists in DC. How will people react to this? Simple, they will regard any member of these groups who is a co-worker as being probably unsound for the job. Your solution engenders mistrust, and more racism/sexism/"whatever the heck it is" ism. As with most government programs, the "solution" only creates more of a problem.

I love how you declare your argument as correct as a basis for your argument. Would you like to show how no problem exists, yet we've never had a Muslim/Atheist/Buddhist/Wiccan/Morman/Jewish, minority, gay or female President or Vice-President? Would you like to show how no problem exists, yet the proportion of wealth held by white males in this country (coincidentally the group most legally and socially favored historically :rolleyes: ) is wildly disproportionate to their representation within the population of the US? Would you like to explain the disproportion of business-owners, college students, impovershed individuals, life-expectancy, etc.? Or you can just declare victory and pretend like you've made your argument already.

Without affirmative action, a minority in a workplace can only be assumed as someone who is sound for the job, getting through a process of evaluation and competition the same as everyone else. Exactly why this would lead to more prejudice, and discrimination is something no one has ever answered.

Um, because while it's really nice for people already in the workplace to recieve the recognition they deserve, this does little to comfort the disproportionate number of unemployed and qualified minorities. If given the choice between a perceived inequity and a real inequity, I'll take the perceived one EVERY time.

As for your arguments, resorting to ridicule only shows the weakness of them.

As opposed to comparing people to Nazis and Commies? Ridiculous.

I do have a better solution, a better policy for governments: do nothing whatsoever.

Yep. Worked great. Oh, wait, that was a fantasy I had. In real life, there was a very real and established inequity before the policy and that inequity has been reduced by the policy. You have yet to show otherwise.

The government should hand out contracts based solely on the quality of the bid compared with the others in terms of price, and goods and services offered. The government should hire people based solely on their qualifications, and experiences.

Yes, because they never favor companies except in terms of DBE. Nope, no one can name a company that happens to have ties to the Vice-President and seems to be getting most of the contracts in Iraq. We can't name them because you've "established that no problem exists". /sarcasm

In the real world, DBE's win jobs when they are equally-qualified to another company. When both companies are qualified, it makes perfect sense to correct the inequity. I say this as someone who sells only to government agencies, currently, and has every resulting contract award made public along with the scoring system for said contract. If in the award, it can be shown that another company was more-qualified then the contract is not awarded and the selection process resumes. But, of course, you knew this, yes?

As for the private sector: hands off completely. To do anything else is to cement the attitude that the government can and should steal the property of anyone with "undesirable" attitudes.

Uh-huh. Yep, the government should allow corporations to exploit people in any way they see fit. They should be allowed to fire people a year before retirement, act in collusion to lower wages, discriminate against minorities and women, anything else is just our Nazi/Commie government losing their mind again. /sarcasm

How about we DON'T ignore history and actually take action to limit the power of corporations to exploit workers (and preferably limit the power of unions to do the same)?

If people want to name and shame firms that have these undesirable attitudes, fine, let them. Articles, books, broadcasts, letters, websites, interviews, posters, you name it. Change the defamation laws to ensure that truth is a defence.

I agree with this last.

At the expense of the majority

What "expense of the majority"? Do you see the white majority suffering?

At the individual level, a recent study established that the average effect of Affirmative Action policies at Ivy League schools on a white applicant's probability of admission is between 2-4%. That means that any given applicant is more likely to lose "his" seat because he joined the wrong clubs in high school or some other kid's father graduated from the university, than because he was displaced by a minority applicant. (Moreover, one cannot help but notice this means Affirmative Action necessarily affects only the most marginal white students, the ones whose chances of admission were slim anyway.)

More importantly, "qualification" and "potential" are abstract terms. "Test scores" and "grades" are concrete measurements designed to calculate the abstractions. Yet scientific research has shown that the same concrete measure does not equate to the same abstract qualification for different groups of people. In particular, research has shown that white students score higher on standardized tests than equally qualified minority candidates in terms of future academic success--another, and clearly superior because it is "after the fact" rather than predictive, measure of qualifications.

The case is similar to physical requirements for men and women in the military. The qualification being measured is physical fitness. The same qualification is required of men and women... but different tests are used to determine this qualification.

The same is true of college admission. The qualification that matters to admissions personnel is likelihood of academic success. Now, if research shows that black high school students who score an 1100 on the SAT are exactly as likely to succeed as white applicants who score 1200, then blacks with an 1100 are, as far as the science of standardized testing goes, equally qualified with whites who score 1200.

It is the qualification that matters: the probability of academic success. The measure, in itself, has no importance other than as a predictor of the qualification.

naturally, however their sacrosanct right to equality is only tenable insofar as the minorites remain superior legally no?

In what fantasy world are minorities "superior legally" to the white majority?

I've repeatedly seen posts (usually totally unrelated to the threads) that complain about affirmative action saying it is racist and promotes less qualified minorities over more qualified white males.

This is simply wrong...

6. Affirmative action traces its moral roots to several related goals: (1) fighting discrimination, (2) compensating for past injuries, (3) striving for a fair distribution of opportunities and responsibilities, (4) seeking social well-being, and (5) promoting diversity.


Your thinking is hypocritical. If you wanted to complete these objectives then descriminating against someone in either a positive or negative fashion is contray to your goals. A better solution would be a law that forbids the government from recognizing race or sex in cases such as public education and government hirings.

The government fails in its goals of leading its people if it imposes the kind of regulations such as affirmative action over its people. It should lead by example and hire regardless of race, sex or any other barrier that might separate one group or another.

The case is similar to physical requirements for men and women in the military. The qualification being measured is physical fitness. The same qualification is required of men and women... but different tests are used to determine this qualification.

That is only true of jobs that have no strong physical element. Male or female, a firefighter still has to be able to carry an unconscious person out of a burning building, a cargo worker still has to be able to handle crates, a flight line fuel technician still has to be able to operate heavy refueling equipment... get my drift? You can't universally say that different physical standards for men and women are acceptable. When people's lives are at stake, they are absolutely NOT acceptable.

The same is true of college admission. The qualification that matters to admissions personnel is likelihood of academic success. Now, if research shows that black high school students who score an 1100 on the SAT are exactly as likely to succeed as white applicants who score 1200, then blacks with an 1100 are, as far as the science of standardized testing goes, equally qualified with whites who score 1200.

Again, this is too universal a statement. People don't fit into little boxes. If one of my parents is black and the other is white, is 1150 my target? Personally, I'm 25% Cherokee. What's my "race"? (Answer: HUMAN)

That is only true of jobs that have no strong physical element. Male or female, a firefighter still has to be able to carry an unconscious person out of a burning building, a cargo worker still has to be able to handle crates, a flight line fuel technician still has to be able to operate heavy refueling equipment... get my drift? You can't universally say that different physical standards for men and women are acceptable. When people's lives are at stake, they are absolutely NOT acceptable.

I didn't say all physical standards should be different for men and women. I specifically mentioned the military, whose fundamental requirement is fitness, not any particular job skill.

I agree with you that some jobs, such as that of a firefighter, may in fact require particular substantive physical requirements.

Again, this is too universal a statement. People don't fit into little boxes.

No, they don't. But when we are trying to make guesses about their future success, in school or in a job, we need to utilize all of the information available... and this tends to come in the form of scientific generalizations combined with as many relevant details about an individual as we can obtain. But since we can never obtain all relevant details without scanning someone's brain to read their exact history, intelligence, and motivation, people will always, for predictive purposes, wind up in "little boxes."

This is reality. We do have to live with this.

If you don't like being insulted, don't insult people. You opened the door, don't complain when it hits you in the butt.

As for whether black and latino presidents, the very fact that you brought that up merely demonstrates your racism. The fact that you think that not having presidents of a particular race is a bad thing is racist. You are judging people by their race. A US President should be judged by his actions in office, or his inactions in office, not his race. You cannot prove to me that a black or hispanic President would be a better President than a white, or a Martian. It is simply impossible to prove because race has nothing to do with the Presidency.

Unless of course you live in the real world where you realize that the reason only white males (and in the last century only Christian) have been President or Vice-President is racism. Recognizing racism is not racism. To presume otherwise makes it impossible to identify inequity of any kind when in the real world such inequity exists.

You pretend like the status quo is that the President is judged by his actions or inactions and not his race, but how do you explain ONLY white males, the most amazing coincidence EVER?

I find it amusing that people who claim to be against racial discrimination are obsessed with counting people by race.

Or they are just recognizing that such an action is necessary to identify inequality. If only racists are allowed to recognize race, how do you suppose we combat it? Magic?

You have shown yourself incapable of behaving like a civilised adult. You will not be treated as one.

Ah, more elevation of the conversation. "You did it first!"

As to the specifics in Cat-Tribes' post, there are none. Merely the standard, already refuted defences to a failed program.

No specifics? What's next? Cat's a woman simply because you declare he is. Cat's post is long and specific and you managed to not address any of it.

Neither you nor Cat-Tribes have offered conclusive proof that general discrimination occurs today, nor have you successfully made the argument that specific individual cases need to be dealt with through general policy.

BWAHAHA! Yes, there is no discrimination. Ignore the man behind the curtain. Again, would you like address the actual inequalities in pay, wealth, joblessness, health, etc.? Or do those not matter?

If you want a point by point refutation, here it is:

(Cat Tribes' points will be taken in the order he numbered them)

Oh, so there are some specifics. Interesting level of consistency there. I see you're about to address the specifics of a post that you claimed had no specifics.

1) Affirmative action is discrimination for the simple reason that all choices are discrimination. For example, I use a Intel Celeron. There are a number of discriminations that I made, between types of computer, brands of CPU, between Intel products. I discriminated on the grounds of cost, and relability.

Again, you refuse to recognize there are different meanings of a word and the use Cat's places on the word is obvious. Changing the meaning of his terms to refute his arguments is called a strawman. Watch it burn, folks!

Affirmative action is racial, and/or sexual discrimination because it introduces the making of choices in terms of race and sex (or whatever else is targettted for affirmative action)

Introduces? It recognizes that that type of discrimination already exists so it addresses it so as to balance the field.

Secondly, Cat Tribes' mentions, as you do, that "underrepresentation" is a problem. This is the most glaring weakness in your arguments because no one has ever established that it is a problem.

Unless, of course, you're a minority that would like equality of opportunity. But, hey, why should we care about them? You like to pretend that all people have equal access to the job of President. History disagrees with you. But we're not allowed to point that out, because, according to you, doing so is racist. I love how you say "prove it" and at the same time claim that any attempt at proof is racist. Ridiculous.

2) An empirical argument with no supporting evidence presented whatsoever. Not worth addressing.

What? Cat-Tribes is a woman? The sky is green? It must be true since you said so.

3) Ad-hominem. He has not established that affirmative action is in fact being misrepresented.

I think you need to look up the term, friend. Meanwhile, you ignore the point.

4) If he is prizing merit above all else, then he has contradicted everything else.

Really? See and here I thought he says that considering race and sex is only when merit is equal.

"And it includes programs that favor -- among similar candidates, all of whom are otherwise qualified--members of historically subordinated and still underrepresented groups."

Oh, look, he did say that. Your declarations that the sky is green hold little merit.

5) Contradicts 4, and gives anyone evaluating a candidate a reason to do exactly the opposite of what he seeks by introducing vagueness into the process. There is already a great deal of vagueness involved in such processes, so much so that any employer/evaluator/etc who wants to reject candidates can come up with a fully credible explaination for the rejection should the matter come before court. Of course, the easiest way to deal with court actions is to settle out of court. Deep Kimchi was correct, this is a shakedown. With the vagueness in the process, we have no real way to establish that "discriminatory" practices are in fact occuring, someone prosecuting such a case cannot reasonably meet the burden of proof required.

What was it you were saying about supporting assertions? Oh, wait, that doesn't apply to you, right?

6.1) You don't fight "discrimination" be introducing more.

Uh-huh. What do you mean? You explained what discrimination is. What's wrong with it? Discrimination is and should be a part of all choices.

"Affirmative action is discrimination for the simple reason that all choices are discrimination. For example, I use a Intel Celeron. There are a number of discriminations that I made, between types of computer, brands of CPU, between Intel products. I discriminated on the grounds of cost, and relability."

See how ridiculous the conversation becomes when one does that?

6.2) If individuals have been discriminated against by other individuals, then the case must be tied to the individuals. It does not, and cannot establish a general trend. I shall say it again, where an individual has been discriminated against, that individual should be compensated at the expense of those who committed the discrimination.

Oh, it certainly can and it must when there is a general trend the government must recognize it and seek to reverse it in the interest of equality.

6.3) Vague, nonsensical.

Again, if you just call it nonsensical then you don't have to address it right? Meanwhile, the fact that we can mention situation after situation where white males are and have been favored says that it's not nonsensical and needs to be addressed.

6.4) As above, I shall add that Apartheid, and the Nuremburg laws were justified on the grounds that they "improved" "social well-being".

Oh, hey, more attempts to debunk the arguments not by actually addressing them but just by comparing them to policies that are mutually identified as bad. Hey, National Socialism was a type of government, does that mean all governments are bad. Is the US democracy just like them just because they are a government?

6.5) "Diversity" has not been established as a total virtue, and since he is not speaking of intellectual diversity (the only real diversity), I don't see that anything worthwhile is being promoted at all.
Many minorities that, prior to AA, were traditionally kept out of certain job levels and professions might wholly disagree with you.

Didn't the Supreme Court vote in favor of a University that practiced admission Quotas? Saying that such selection of Race, Creed, sex... etc. was permissable to allow for a diversity of people to gain education?

And I believe the courts can order businesses to have Quotas.

They also decided against a university that added points to the scores of minorities thus allowing less-qualified candidates entrance into a university. Affirmative action as written as applied by the Supreme Court is meant to favor minorities only in a case where candidates are equally qualified.

Your thinking is hypocritical. If you wanted to complete these objectives then descriminating against someone in either a positive or negative fashion is contray to your goals. A better solution would be a law that forbids the government from recognizing race or sex in cases such as public education and government hirings.

How exactly would that law overcome the fact that people of certain ethnicities tend to come from more disadvantaged backgrounds and thus have less opportunity to succeed? How would it overcome the fact that societal prejudice has led many to believe (and to tell their children) that certain jobs are "women's work" and others are "men's work" and that "girls don't like math" or "only girly boys like to cook"?

When I, along with several other women and an occasional man who were members of the Society of Women Engineers, went out to local schools to do science experiments and help children with their math and science homework with the purpose of (along with being helpful), dispelling the stereotype that engineering is a "man's job" or that women can't be good at math and science, were we being discriminatory? Were we perpetuating gender bias? Or were we doing away with it?

Believe it or not, the exact action described above falls under the broad descriptor "affirmative action."

Your thinking is hypocritical. If you wanted to complete these objectives then descriminating against someone in either a positive or negative fashion is contray to your goals. A better solution would be a law that forbids the government from recognizing race or sex in cases such as public education and government hirings.

The government fails in its goals of leading its people if it imposes the kind of regulations such as affirmative action over its people. It should lead by example and hire regardless of race, sex or any other barrier that might separate one group or another.

How do you propose we manage to not notice race or sex in personal interviews? And trust me, in order to evaluate someone for a position in my firm I must see them in person to evaluate how they present themselves in similar situations. If race and sex could be completely ignored that would be ideal, but it's an impossible suggestion. Race and sex are clear in almost all cases prior to employment and race and sex are ALWAYS clear after employment begins (where discrimination in elevation can occur).

I didn't say all physical standards should be different for men and women. I specifically mentioned the military, whose fundamental requirement is fitness, not any particular job skill.

I agree with you that some jobs, such as that of a firefighter, may in fact require particular substantive physical requirements.

I don't suppose I was explicit enough. I was talking about the military, which does have career firefighters, as well as a number of other physically challenging fields, some of which I mentioned. FYI.

since we can never obtain all relevant details without scanning someone's brain to read their exact history, intelligence, and motivation, people will always, for predictive purposes, wind up in "little boxes."

This is reality. We do have to live with this.

None of this changes my opinion, that affirmative action is like slapping a band-aid on a gaping wound. It's the wrong course. I believe attacking poverty would be a better use of federal time, energy and funds.

Of course, the superprofits that make employee benefits possible are generated largely by the capitalist rape of the Third World, but that's another story.
Not capitalist, statist. The only reason this raping takes place is because the people in charge of those countries either don't know how to do their job or just don't want to. It's not hard to guess that a lot of major corporations will need to seek cheaper labor, especially as hiring restrictions/guidelines are enacted domestically.

Also, that's something of a broad brush. I don't think the restaurant I worked at had any "superprofits" off which to distribute my benefits. It did some serious damage to their labor costs, but that's how the owners chose to ran their business.

Trying to pull a fast one? We both know that salaries are just as much subject to the laws of supply and demand as any other prices. Well-paying jobs exist where qualified labor is relatively scarce... and guess what? Any "rational" manager knows to pay his employees as little as he can get away with, lest he lose out to a competitor who pays less. He will pay exactly what he needs to attract the labor he needs. Any more is out of the "kindness of his heart". It happens, but I doubt it's the norm.
Exactly. What exactly is your problem with this? No matter where money or any other resource comes from, it will have to have some manner of limit: under capitalism, you wouldn't make any more [or any less] than your employer wanted you to earn, and under a more "altruistic" society one would get no more resources than is neccessary given the needs of his neighbors. Under capitalism, you get fewer resources if you fail to do your job or don't do a job at all; under socialism you get fewer resources if your neighbor has a baby or if her mother falls ill.

Laughable. The only reason there are minimum wage laws is because without them, employers would pay unskilled laborers so little that they could barely survive. Hell, many of them barely survive [I]with a minimum wage.
Did you pay any attention to what I was saying?

The situation I was describing would be the case if and only if businesses operated as you were suggesting, nothing else. The above claim only solidifies my point: if employers were only interested in paying their laborers "enough to survive," no wages would exist above the minimum one.

The Founders of this country believed that the United States economy could avoid the "European conditions" of an urban poor and merciless corporations unwilling to pay them a living wage. They believed, as you apparently do, that the market could regulate itself.
Yes, apparently I do think the market can regulate itself; at least it would if it were free to. By "regulate" I don't mean it guarantees a meal on every table and I don't mean "widespread benefits to the poor" either. What I mean is that the market by definition regulates itself to the extent that it naturally does away with faulty or inferior products [or, for this matter, hiring practices] because where a better alternative is going to appear, it will be favored over the previous one.

For the purposes of this discussion, I would be remiss in failing to point out what a horrible business decision it is to exclude minorities under racist pretenses: not only are you alienating the members of that race, you're alienating the rest of us who don't happen to like racists. In a free society, I should be free to discover this on my own, and so should my neighbor. Any attempt to dictate just who we should or shouldn't associate with is tantamount to attempting to define my own attitudes and beleifs for me, and I would hope I don't have to explore why that isn't a good thing, but so far that would be about par for the course I guess.

What most modern libertarians miss when they read the Founders (if they actually read them) is that they had a practical reason for believing that United States capitalism could be different than what they saw in Europe. They believed that with their small population and readily available land, it would be possible for any urban laborer to "escape" to set up his own subsistence farm. Free land was a "natural" inflationary force on wages, a "safety valve" on the pressures of class conflict.

Of course, they failed to predict the onset of industrial capitalism and the changes it would bring to the economy. They failed to see that the "natural" safety valve would not last forever. When it had finally become abundantly clear that it had failed, that is when the United States instituted minimum wages to act as an "artificial" force to improve wages and stave off violent class conflict.
Sorry, but I'm not quite prepared to swallow that.

First of all, the Founding Father's predictions about the economy might have been wrong or they might have been right: regardless of that it's sort of hard to deny that the legal framework they created was probably the single greatest catalyst for us having acheived Industrialism in the first place. I also find it somewhat hard to beleive that they thought the land they were living on was somehow infinite. Had this doctrine arisen in the Dark Ages, I might be persuaded to beleive that. Even if the land isn't, the opportunity nearly is if you structure your laws accordingly [which they did].

Also, you're fogetting a key issue about minimum wage: together with the income tax system, it allowed the Federal Government to generate its own income to a relatively predictable degree. Somehow, I would imagine this had more to do with it than any potential for "violent class conflict," which didn't really happen that much [compared to some other countries, at least] even during the goddamn Depression.
We're arguing about Affirmative Action now, not socialism.
I didn't say we were arguing about socialism. I said that at my last job a--private concern-- offered me a benefit [a benefit that it didn't have to offer, a benefit brought about by the owner's volition and not the government's club or cage or gun] that has historically been a bureaucratic mess under Socialism. It's true it's not the topic of our debate, but if you're going to go apeshit over Locke, the least you can do is grin and bear it when I mention your moral roots.

As it happens, I have a socialist leaning...
Gee, I couldn't tell.

but I also value market liberty. Thus, my view is far more complex than can be handled in a brief explanation, and will only serve to further radically sidetrack the discussion. So, let's just leave socialism out of it.
If you value market liberty, where do you get off proposing to suggest how it hires people? If you value market liberty, why don't you allow people the freedom to make their own choices, even if they aren't good ones? If you value market liberty, why are you forcing racial tolerance down the throat of every hiring manager in the country?

Look, I've expressed my opinions of racism and I don't buy any of it for a second, but people ought to act as they please where their money and their labor is concerned. If someone wants to be a racist prick when it comes to handing out jobs--fine. That just means more of the brains is going to end up at a competitor. Qualified people don't starve in this country: in spite of what the AA horror stories might have you beleive I wouldn't imagine your average college educated black man has trouble getting a job.

First of all, "tribe" is different than "race."
You know what I meant. Point stands. Xenophobic behavior has been exhibited many times throughout history by various agents of mankind. A lot of it has probably sunk in by now, rightly or wrongly.

The history of race as we know it is intimately bound up with the history of African slavery, and something approaching the modern (racist) conception of "race" did not appear until the early nineteenth century.
This is so ridiculous on so many levels I hardly know where to begin. Well.... I sort of see where your coming from with part of it, but "early nineteenth century" is a bit of a stretch, if you ask me, since we had slaves on the ground in the New World more or less since it had been discovered. That suggests [to me at least] that the seeds of "modern" racism had been planted perhaps as early as the Renaissance.

Another thing we have to consider here is the fact that early America was the first time blacks and whites had even been exposed to each other, at least on a racial or cultural level. Historically, we're still both very new to each other. Asking for complete tolerance right now is still a bit ridiculous on a mass level, since the changes you're trying to force [or "encourage" or whatever else you want to call it] are still probably over a century away. Old ideas die hard.

Aggression is instinctive; racism is not.
Woah there Sigmund, easy on the reins. That's a bit of a broad generalization. Some forms of aggression are instinctive and some are not [since I wouldn't call homicidal frenzies "instinctive" but I would call them "aggressive"]. The same is the case with racism, I suspect.

Secondly... below, don't you criticize me for bringing up "cave men"?
Yes, I'm glad you noticed. The reason I brought them up here was to offer some supporting evidence to my claim that racism as a behavior is a largely instinctive [or at the very least, very deeply ingrained] trait, which some of us might act on without knowing it.

You, on the other hand, brought it up because you focused on the wrong word in my earlier analysis. I said "Capitalism upholds value on its most basic level" and you attempted to refute that by telling me that early societies were decidedly communial in nature.

Neither. It's a false dilemma. While I maintain that property is founded not on natural right, but on positive law, I still maintain a doctrine of property rights that hardly considers them "expendable." However, because I understand property as founded on positive law, I understand that property rights are more flexible and less doctrinaire than you would have them. Property exists for the good of humankind, not the other way around.
Property is not founded in "positive law." As I've stated multiple times, if someone steals a possession, this does not mean my right to own it never existed, regardless of the legal framework of the country I happen to live in [since laws can obviously be very wrong]. If property is based on "positive law," so is everything else: our right to exist, our right to think, and so on. If you're prepared to beleive you only exist because a politician wrote it down that you should, have fun with that: I've got bigger plans.

Property also doesn't exist for humankind, it exists because of humankind. Your closing sentance makes it seems like property is some mystic force ascribed to us by a Greater Consciousness .

Nor have I. Indeed, I struggle to understand how it is that you apparently miss every positive argument that I make... perhaps you ignore the parts you don't understand?
If you can find me one shred of text [aside from your "That depends on where you're standing" earlier in this post] that I ignored, I will eat my hat. I have not ignored [i]one character you've written and not a single argument you have made has gone unchallenged. [b]You, on the other hand, have left out enormous chunks of my posts, and contained in several of those passages are points I've either made again since, or they were never answered in the first place. You attack my philosophical ancestors without even knowing who they are, using terms like "natural right"--a phrase which does not exist in my philosophical language--although clearly you're interested in assuming it does.

"Life is the root of value" is either a worthless truism ("only living things value anything"), or it is the fruit of some shallow sophistry designed to show... what?
What it shows is right there in black and white. I was even nice enough to bullet it for you if you'd care to read it again. The logic follows one statement right after the other. Doesn't get much simpler than that.

If it's wrong, please tell me how. If it's meaningless, you're not thinking about it hard enough.

We are not "emulating" "savages" at all. The argument arose because you claim that private property is a natural right because it is necessary to the preservation of life. I gave a counter-example of societies--indeed, the original and longest-lasting societies--that managed to survive perfectly well without private property.
Two things:

First, I did not claim that property is a "natural right," in fact if you can find the words "natural right" in any of my posts [either in this thread or in my entire posting career] I will not only eat my hat, I'll eat my boots too. Steel toed. "Natural right" is something of a misued phrase philosophically, and while I can understand why you assumed what you did, I avoid the term "natural right" for a reason, since it generally implies that you're entitled to some kind of property. If you mean "Natural right" in the sense that it's a moral principle created by man's existence and awareness [and nothing else] then you're right.

Secondly, the argument is ridiculous. The longevity of a civilization shouldn't always be taken as an endorsement of its policies. If you're going to argue that we return to a communial society simply on virtue of the fact that it's "worked" in the past, one could make the case for reinstating slavery (!) based on its prior success in Rome or Egypt. Sometimes its good to draw comparisons and make arguments based on history, but this isn't one of those times.

If it is going to be called a natural right, it requires some other explanation than that that is is vital to the preservation of life and the pursuit of happiness. That may be true in a market society... but that only proves what I have claimed from the start, that property rights are a positive expedient to life in a market society--not a natural right.
Gladly. Property rights exist--and they need to be upheld because anything on this planet that doesn't occur in nature was the product of someone's thought turned into action. Strictly speaking, this makes it an extension of its creator's life, since when you think about it property is what we make by living and everything obtained in said life--be it raw wages, a new lamp, a desk, a chair or a hammock--is an extension of this life because only its effort made that object possible. Denying property rights is tantamount to saying "you can live, you just can't get anything from it." Ethically, this is what I call a state of "living death," wherein the unfortunate citizenry is afforded few benefits for living.

He makes more than a few. His entire political philosophy rests on fundamental ambiguities in his conception of human nature.
Hardly. Epistemologically, the largest error he can be deemed guilty of is the assumption that morals and ethics comes from some higher power and not from ourselves.

I am not "assuming" it, I am reaching that conclusion based on the fact that you seem to be espousing a version of the Lockean theory of property and accumulation. Locke, at any rate, did a better job of it than you have... so if I can defeat the stronger argument (his), why bother with the weaker?
If you can "defeat" either one I'd be interested to see it happen. At any rate they shouldn't be treated as interchangeable when they clearly differ on a few key aspects. I'm not going to slam Locke--he is one of my more favored philosophers, but it's kind of funny to me that we've gone this far with you heckling Locke while leaving my two larger [and probably more controversial] ethical ancestors untouched.


My apologies. I am doing the best I can within the confines of the discussion. I refer to my pending paper because, in it, you will find a much more thorough exigesis of the essential issues, spanning some 60 pages rather than several posts. I wish I could give it to you now to expedite the process... but I'll certainly try to let you know when it is available. We shall have to wait on my editors. Until then, half-arguments will have to suffice.
I probably wouldn't read it anyway. I'm sure this is hardly the first criticism of Locke from a leftist: if I want your moral analysis I'll go to the bookstore and buy a Socialist rag. I wouldn't guess it's much more challenging than what's already been presented here anyway.

So how about answering that argument I was talking about?


Actually, what I'm suggesting is that a life-model based solely on self-preservation is overly narrow (and, on a close examination, probably self-contradictory).
Narrow? Yes. Contradictory? Haven't found one yet [and I've been looking].

You like to pretend that human psychology begins and ends with the self. The fact of the matter is that the "self" only emerges as the result of interactions with others, and erotic (loving) motivations towards them, on such a basic level that it is impossible--and certainly impractical--to separate them.
I'm not quite convinced. Drop a baby on a desert island and 20 years later if he's lucky enough to still be alive he will have a sense of self, albeit a crude and misshapen one by our standards. He might not be able to communicate or adapt or be productive, but he will have a "sense of self." Even animals have got that, I'd reckon.

If you're going to suggest that the perception of the self emerges through interacting with reality--i.e. with the environment [and yes, usually, the people] around you--then yes, I agree completely. None of that is detrimental in any way, shape, or form to my conception of rights and property.

You earnestly insist that "ethics" rests on some firmer foundation than positive morality. I agree. But no "ethics" worthy of the name can rest on self-preservation without the assumption that other people have value... too.
Presumptive definition of value. Since life is the root of value, only the individual who lives can have values, and its a bit hasty to assume that all people will automatically fit into this category. Some people have value, some don't. I don't know which side has more since I am unable to evaluate them all at once, and in many cases [like with the handicapped, the very young, etc] I can't even use the same standards.

Other people might have value, if they choose to act on the best within them as opposed to the worst. I'm not going to invest in some random dude on simple virtue of this decidedly flawed axiom.

Actually, that's a good way to put it, and it is in accord with most of the great theories of ethical obligation. "I matter most... but others matter, too."
For once we agree. A lot of people like to assume that since I'm a proponent of egoism, that means disdain or dislike for others is a built-in aspect of my ethics: this isn't the case simply because we should maintain an open mind, insofar as allowing [and perceiving] virtue from others. If $EGOSIT approaches a stranger, it shouldn't always mean the exchange will be hostile or otherwise worthless, since it makes sense to afford a basic sense of civility towards other people because of the enormous potential they might have to embody your values. The practice I'm opposed to, in its simplest form, is the idea that people ought to be judged with something other than a clean slate. Morally, this means doing away with things like Original Sin, or it's socialist equivalent "debt to society" which can never be repaid and which never involves benefit for the one doing the paying.


Yes, but they may well grow their food together.


That's right: we get in there [I]too. More importantly, you are missing the inclination to, having built a shelter, invite your exposed neighbor to share it. (We may manage to talk ourselves out of this... but most of us have to admit that the basic sense of pity is there.)
You're missing the forest for the trees. My point was that in order to survive, we must benefit off these actions in an ultimate sense. Of course it makes sense that we'd do things like build barns or gather food in groups, since we all know how much faster that goes. My point here is that the very act of survival depends on a certain amount of selfishness, and any sharing we do, we generally do with the presumption [or vague hope] that it will, someday, be reciprocated.


Not at all. A "wild" human raised without human contact in the wilderness might, perhaps, practice self-preservation alone with no "social" sense at all. But normal human beings, raised the way nature intended, have a sense of pity--a "natural repugnance to see any sensitive being suffer or perish" as Rousseau called it--that we feel at the most basic ontological level.
Don't give me this "the way nature intended" shit, because if you want to use that as a lynchpin I get to take up all sorts of radical anti-homosexuality statutes on the grounds that such relations were not "intended by nature." In a roundabout way, you're suggesting here that nature intended for us to be brought up with a certain set of compassionate values--whether you know it or not you're subtly suggesting that anyone who was brought up to look after "me and mine" somehow isn't "natural."

Also, this "natural repugnance," while it may be largely true, does not justify putting my life to use for the benefit of others, unless I want it to. As strong as this "natural repugnance" might be when we see other people get the shaft, it's probably remarkably more pronounced in most cases when the "sensitive being" being perished or suffering is oneself.

Indeed, ethical evolutionists have proposed a plausible evolutionary explanation for this: what "survival" is really all about, from the perspective of nature, is not individual's but genes. Nature thus selects for genes that have an altruistic function: they may even be willing to sacrifice the particular individual in which they rest so that related inviduals, indeed the whole species, can survive.
We can argue in circles about this all we want, as I'm likely to be of the position that nature selects those who produce [rather than those who give], since women are biologically drawn to material production--they have to be if they're going to sustain a child. There's more than one reason why it's easy to get women if you have a lot of money.

Only a naive view of human nature and the preservative instinct--one that ignores both experience and science--can suppose that the individual is the proper unit of analysis.
Proper use unit of analysis for what? Morality?

I do. But it would be naive to blame one man for it, especially when the historical record shows that his problem was not so much bad decision making in foreign policy, but a faulty method for "testing" reality: he was blinded to what was actually going on. (There is a great book on this subject, called "How Presidents Test Reality," comparing Eisenhower's and Johnson's responses to crises in Vietnam.) Again: bad President; not evil.
Suit yourself. Out of curiousity, were you alive while LBJ was president?

What are you saying here? The point has been only this: that whatever previous Presidents may have thought about race, Johnson was the first one to really do anything about it. He deserves at least some credit for that.
What I'm saying is that if you weren't willing to "pay the price" for enacting civil rights legislation, you had no business in calling for "Equality" or an end to racism in the first place. With a few exceptions [mostly in the realm of philosophy] I don't give people much credit for just knowing reality--since they're ultimately free to evade or ignore that knowledge. Giving credit to LBJ for acting on his conceptions of race is like giving me credit for not holding up a liquor store.

An ever increasing proportion of the population does not fit into ethnic boxes.
Including me.
There simply is no ethnicity that forms more than a quarter of my blood.
I'm not white, not asian, not jewish, not black, nor native american, nor any other tag you may design.
I'm me.
My ethnicity, or lack thereoff, is my own concern, not yours.

An attempt to box me based on my religion would be pointless as well, I'm quite equally Christian, Confucianist, and Ch'an Buddhist.
My religion is my own concern, not yours.

My sexuality is my own concern, not yours.

Any attempt to make such matters public concerns, rather than my private concerns, constitutes an unbearable abrogation of my rights.


My message to all proponents of reverse racism is the same as my message to say, the KKK.

Go to hell.

I desire no truce nor parley with your lot.
Don't bother to explain.. the more you talk, the more I hate your guts.



You do not have the authority to surrender my rights, sell me into slavery, or have your armed agents attack me for peacefully disposing of my own person and property as I see fit, in voluntary relationships with others. If you do that, then you are criminals; and I have an absolute right, before God and Constitution, to defend myself against the wrongs and injustice of your criminal assaults and the tyranny of your politicians, judges, bureaucrats, and officers ( good Germans, all of them). Mind your own damn business, and leave me the hell alone!
Kelly Ross

http://www.friesian.com/ross/ca40/

An ever increasing proportion of the population does not fit into ethnic boxes.
Including me.
There simply is no ethnicity that forms more than a quarter of my blood.
I'm not white, not asian, not jewish, not black, nor native american, nor any other tag you may design.
I'm me.
My ethnicity, or lack thereoff, is my own concern, not yours.

An attempt to box me based on my religion would be pointless as well, I'm quite equally Christian, Confucianist, and Ch'an Buddhist.
My religion is my own concern, not yours.

My sexuality is my own concern, not yours.

Any attempt to make such matters public concerns, rather than my private concerns, constitutes an unbearable abrogation of my rights.

Perfectly your right. Thank your lucky stars that you live in the America of today, rather than 40 years ago, when many people thought people of mixed parentage were abominations.

I guess all that went away in a single generation, huh?

My message to all proponents of reverse racism is the same as my message to say, the KKK.

Go to hell.

I desire no truce nor parley with your lot.
Don't bother to explain.. the more you talk, the more I hate your guts.

Fine, how do you suggest we deal with the systematic documented discrimination that continues to this day. Ignore it? Hope it goes away? Expect it to change by itself?

Racism is based on ignorance. It's harder to be racist when you go to school and work in an integrated environment. When a concerted effort is made to break the habits passed down from generation to generation, it benefits everyone.

You do not have the authority to surrender my rights, sell me into slavery, or have your armed agents attack me for peacefully disposing of my own person and property as I see fit, in voluntary relationships with others. If you do that, then you are criminals; and I have an absolute right, before God and Constitution, to defend myself against the wrongs and injustice of your criminal assaults and the tyranny of your politicians, judges, bureaucrats, and officers ( good Germans, all of them). Mind your own damn business, and leave me the hell alone!
Kelly Ross

http://www.friesian.com/ross/ca40/

I don't know how this is apropos of voluntary programs whose sole intent is to create a greater mixing of ideas and peoples so that ignorance can be cured with knowledge, so that fear can be replaced by familiarity. The very basis of this country (U.S.A.) was that one cannot be fairly governed without the representation of those who share this land with you. "No taxation without representation!"

The Founding Fathers rejected the concept that they could be ruled from afar by those who did not share in their life experiences. Is this not, ultimately, the goal of those who strive, imperfectly at times, to make sure that the faces and lives of those who serve them publicly reflect the faces and lives of those served by the government?

You cannot make any affirmative action program without making either assumptions or inquiries into MY private concerns.

Such inquiries or assumptions violate my rights.

Therefore, you cannot make ANY affirmative action program without violating my rights.

Therefore, go to Hell!

( Oh, I suppose you could make one based one on the throwing of dice... )


I don't know how this is apropos of voluntary programs whose sole intent is to create a greater mixing of ideas and peoples so that ignorance can be cured with knowledge, so that fear can be replaced by familiarity.
Social engineering, eh? Mind your own damn business and leave me the Hell alone!



Perfectly your right. Thank your lucky stars that you live in the America of today, rather than 40 years ago, when many people thought people of mixed parentage were abominations.

See? You concede the point. Therefore, EVERY word you've written aften conceding my right is superfluous.
MY rights, not yours.
You may not engineer, you may not tinker, you may not sensitise.
Government has NO such powers under the Constitution.

You cannot make any affirmative action program without making either assumptions or inquiries into MY private concerns.

Such inquiries or assumptions violate my rights.

Therefore, you cannot make ANY affirmative action program without violating my rights.

Therefore, go to Hell!

( Oh, I suppose you could make one based one on the throwing of dice... )



Social engineering, eh? Mind your own damn business and leave me the Hell alone!





See? You concede the point. Therefore, EVERY word you've written aften conceding my right is superfluous.
MY rights, not yours.
You may not engineer, you may not tinker, you may not sensitise.
Government has NO such powers under the Constitution.


Are you in favor of allowing businesses to use child labor?

Also, no one requires you to avail yourself of greater opportunities. Nothing is forced on you. You're not required to give any information you don't want to. Where, exactly, is the demarcation between maintaining the peace and tinkering? Should we suspend all public education? Should we allow husbands to beat their wives?

Racism is based on ignorance. It's harder to be racist when you go to school and work in an integrated environment. When a concerted effort is made to break the habits passed down from generation to generation, it benefits everyone.
But everyone obviously continues to be racist don't they? Otherwise there would be no longer any need for affirmative action/reverse racism.

But everyone obviously continues to be racist don't they? Otherwise there would be no longer any need for affirmative action/reverse racism.

I don't think racism is built in to the human psyche. I think fear of the unknown is. Fear of "other." But when "other sits next to you, day in and day out, when your children play with "other," it ceases to be "other."

People with blue eyes don't dicriminate against those with blue eyes, even though bluye eyes are the minority, do they? Is a difference in skin color really any different?

Our history and habits shape racism, not our instincts. People don't just change in one or two generations. The inertia of history still tugs at people.

The thing is, the people who really understand what affirmative action is abhor the necessity of it. And NO ONE wants to see it exist forever.

It should never be an institution. What it is is merely training wheels.

Are you in favor of allowing businesses to use child labor?



Cheers! So you concede my right to hire, eg. only employees who are member of the same religious sect I belong to, without EVER considering anyone else? Even if said persons were all under 16?

I'm in favour of the Government keeping it's nose where it belongs in the first place, and nowhere else.

Also, no one requires you to avail yourself of greater opportunities. Nothing is forced on you. You're not required to give any information you don't want to.
You don't even have the right to inform me about those wonderful opportunities, no more than you have the right to call at my door to inform me about municipal bonds. Stay away from my door, and my telephone.
See... if there is one piece of legislation I approve of it is the Do Not Call list for telemarketing.
Too bad there ain't no DONT CALL unless you got a permission form filled out in triplicate.

Also, no one requires you to avail yourself of greater opportunities. Nothing is forced on you. You're not required to give any information you don't want to.


UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA REGENTS v. BAKKE, 438 U.S. 265 (1978)

I suppose that was voluntary too?

People don't just change in one or two generations. The inertia of history still tugs at people.
No, it is the inertia of passing down racism to your children. Racism could be whiped from the planet in a single generation, but it never will be because the previous generation is racist and teaches the new generation to be racist.

No, it is the inertia of passing down racism to your children. Racism could be whiped from the planet in a single generation, but it never will be because the previous generation is racist and teaches the new generation to be racist.
Interestingly, we are seeing that change with time. Maybe it's the internet, maybe it's the media, maybe kids are just plain smarter these days, but they're finding that kids have much more rational views on race, sexuality, and gender roles than their parents did.

For example, more than 3/4 of American youth believe that homosexuals should be able to exercise the same rights as heterosexuals, including marriage and adoption rights. When you look at the older generations, the numbers are closer to 50-50 (unless you add in the option of "civil unions," in which case more adults will agree to go along with a "separate-but-equal" formula).

No, it is the inertia of passing down racism to your children. Racism could be whiped from the planet in a single generation, but it never will be because the previous generation is racist and teaches the new generation to be racist.


I don't buy it.
Racism.. would not have lasted as long as it has if it had not some form of survival value, although I fail to see how it works in my personal favour.

Darwinism 101: if it exists for a long time, it obviously is good for SOMETHING one way or the other.

Racism, just like Religion, is here to stay. Live with it. I do.
Survival of the fittest is here to stay. Live with it. I do.
The Common Cold is here to stay. Live with it. I do.

I don't buy it.
Racism.. would not have lasted as long as it has if it had not some form of survival value, although I fail to see how it works in my personal favour.

Darwinism 101: if it exists for a long time, it obviously is good for SOMETHING one way or the other.

High infant mortality rates have existed for a long time. Murder has existed for a long time. Rape has existed for a long time. The bubonic plague existed for a long time. The Spice Girls existed for what felt like an eternity. I guess we shouldn't bother resisting any of these evil forces, because everything negative that existed for a long time will have to exist forever and ever. We might as well just quit trying.

I don't know what the hell "Darwinism" is, but evolutionary theory doesn't say anything about whether something is "good" or not based on how long it's been around.

Racism, just like Religion, is here to stay. Live with it. I do.
Survival of the fittest is here to stay. Live with it. I do.
The Common Cold is here to stay. Live with it. I do.
If you feel the need to justify your own laziness by insisting on the futility of action, so be it. Just please be honest with yourself about what you are doing.

Cheers! So you concede my right to hire, eg. only employees who are member of the same religious sect I belong to, without EVER considering anyone else? Even if said persons were all under 16?

I'm in favour of the Government keeping it's nose where it belongs in the first place, and nowhere else.

Okay. Then you're in favor of abolishing the military as well?


You don't even have the right to inform me about those wonderful opportunities, no more than you have the right to call at my door to inform me about municipal bonds. Stay away from my door, and my telephone.
See... if there is one piece of legislation I approve of it is the Do Not Call list for telemarketing.
Too bad there ain't no DONT CALL unless you got a permission form filled out in triplicate.


You have the right not to listen. People have the right to tell you whatever the hell they want to tell you. Your private property is yours, including your phone. Your problem?


UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA REGENTS v. BAKKE, 438 U.S. 265 (1978)

I suppose that was voluntary too?

And Bakke won that case. Your problem?

I don't buy it.
Racism.. would not have lasted as long as it has if it had not some form of survival value, although I fail to see how it works in my personal favour.

Murder still exists as well. Should we do nothing about it?

Darwinism 101: if it exists for a long time, it obviously is good for SOMETHING one way or the other.

"Darwinism" also states that things change over time. The dinosaurs ruled the earth for 100 million years, but now they're all gone. Man hasn't even existed a million years.

Racism, just like Religion, is here to stay. Live with it. I do.
Survival of the fittest is here to stay. Live with it. I do.
The Common Cold is here to stay. Live with it. I do.

I'm sure a lot of people said that about slavery and about segregation in their time as well. People thought Rome would last forever. The Cold will eventually be defeated. Count on it. Smallpox, after all (except in samples) was eradicated.

Okay. Then you're in favor of abolishing the military as well?

...provide for the common defense...

People have the right to tell you whatever the hell they want to tell you. Your private property is yours, including your phone. Your problem?
That you engage in any other activity than leaving me the HELL alone.
Sooo.... could I come into your house, and tell your thirteen year old daughter that I'm going to rape her? I think not.
Unless you think I have that right, your statement 'People have the right to tell you whatever the hell they want to tell you' is a Big Fat Lie.


And Bakke won that case. Your problem?
That some folks STILL strive for socalled affirmative action, which, as you have conceded, is a violation of my ABSOLUTE rights.

Murder still exists as well. Should we do nothing about it?
Gee.... isn't action against murder quite specifically allowed under the Constitution?

"Darwinism" also states that things change over time.
See you in a million years, bubba...

The Cold will eventually be defeated. Count on it.
Not in my lifetime, nor yours. Nice thought... but I dont count on it.

And while I'm at it, not dithering an inch:
Racism, just like Religion, is here to stay. Live with it. I do.
Survival of the fittest is here to stay. Live with it. I do.