Sunday, April 03, 2005
The Case for Affirmative Action
I've been reading a book called "Blink", by Malcolm Gladwell. It's pretty popular these days, and I can tell why: It's interesting and a great read. It's also very insightful. "Blink" is about human intuition, and as such it's subtitled "The power of thinking without thinking." At any rate, I'm not going to summarize the book, but I do highly recommend it. The reason I mention it is because it pointed me to a website that contains the "Implicit Association Test". It's relevant to the book because there's a chapter that discusses how some of our instincts (or implicit associations) can betray us.
So, the "Implicit Association Test" is quite interesting. It's an ongoing project conducted by Harvard that analyzes how your subconscious may make certain associations that you don't necessarily make consciously. The results are powerful and sometimes disturbing. Before proceeding, I urge you to go here and take a couple of the tests. In particular, take the "Race", "Weapons", or "Skin-tone" tests. It requires a bit of time, but the results are quite revealing. Go on...I'll wait.
You took the test. What happened? At any rate, most of the test have revealed that we have implicit, subconscious biases. This may sound a bit pedantic - we all know this, right? But it's interesting to see it formalized by a test, especially since we probably all consider ourselves pretty unbiased, and certainly not racist. So if the results betrayed your conscious beliefs, what does that mean? Are you a racist? No, I don't think so. But it may imply other things.
In "Blink", Gladwell argues that our instinctive reactions determine a lot of things. If we subconsciously feel a certain bias against particularly ethnic groups, it's very tough to suppress that in social interactions. It comes out in certain ways that you have to work very hard to control. Maybe you adopt a more closed posture when you meet black people. Maybe you smile less or make a little less eye contact. In turn, they might react differently as well. It's not intentional at all, but it's pretty hard work to suppress your instincts, even if you want to. One way is to be incredibly self-aware, but people like that are pretty unusual. Another method might be to change society all together.
Extrapolating from Gladwell, if you assume that these tests are pretty accurate, and that his assertions about instinct are true, I think this is a pretty strong case for affirmative action. Affirmative action rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Many people believe it's reverse discrimination. They'd like to think that everything should be merit-based, and that if you look at race at all, you're being racist, regardless of if you're benefiting a minority or not. But here's a compelling argument that says that we're not merit-based in America. That even the most open-minded, liberal, selfless person can be subject to their own biased subconscious.
I don't think you can dismiss the effects of this - if a significant percentage of Americans have a subconscious bias against certain ethnic groups, it's going to manifest itself in certain detrimental ways. And I'd argue that one of those ways would be those minorities being less "successful" in society - getting less schooling, earning less money, advancing less far in their careers. So it's up to us to combat this. How? Well, I think there are two ways.
The short-term solution is that we need to level the playing field. If society is (intentionally or not) making certain groups less apt to succeed, I think we have an obligation to compensate for that. Affirmative action seems like a good place to start. There are many different methods that one can use to compensate, and I'm certainly not advocating all of them. Certainly, such an approach must be implemented with good judgment and temperance. Maybe colleges and businesses should more actively recruit minorities. Maybe they should do community outreach. Maybe they can encourage more interaction between people of different backgrounds. Maybe they can make an effort to accept and/or promote more minorities. Maybe they should have quotas to assure that the demographics of their institution accurately reflects the demographics of the country. Regardless of what particular method is used, I think it's a moral imperative to assure that everyone gets a fair shake. And if they aren't getting a fair shake, then we need to compensate for that.
There definitely can be some problems with affirmative action. Why shouldn't business and colleges operate like a meritocracy? Well, I think one can argue that it's pretty difficult to define merit, especially if society subconsciously subverts certain groups' means of attaining even defining merit. It's pretty easy to see this from a selfish point of view, if you're a white kid who gets 1500 on his SATs, and instead of you a black kid who only gets 1400 gets in, and all other methods of evaluation are pretty similar. But if you take into account the inherent biases that the IAT reveals, well, you could make a pretty compelling argument that those accomplishments are at least equivalent, because of what the black kid has had to overcome in societal bias.
Another possible argument against affirmative action is that it's certainly possible that some schools or some businesses shouldn't necessarily exhibit the same demographic makeup as the rest of the country. Maybe some races are particularly adept at certain types of academic study, and are naturally drawn to those fields. Maybe men are more interested in certain businesses than women, and thus are more likely to be skilled businessmen in those sectors. There's a danger of being too politically correct, and just assuming that race or gender or whatever doesn't matter at all. It does matter. It does help define who a person is. And I don't have an easy answer for that. I don't think it's a black and white issue (no pun intended). There are shades of gray. But I do think it's tempting and somewhat lazy to just accept that things are the way they are solely because certain groups of people naturally have preferences or tendencies, and so we shouldn't waste our time trying to subvert them. Furthermore, I think if we don't counter those stereotypes, they just get reinforced, and even if less women than men want to enter the business world, for instance, just giving up on encouraging women to enter business will eventually make it very hard for ANY woman to succeed in business.
I think the short-term argument of compensation is decently compelling, but only approach it from an "equalizing" mindset does nothing to solve the problem in the long-term. However, I believe affirmative action also has long-term benefits. And, ultimately, any approach we would take should work toward the eventual goal of true minority representation in colleges and businesses. How does affirmative action achieve this? Because it causes people to be exposed to other cultures and races, instead of just living within their own demographic. In a truly diverse environment, unless your goal is to be completely isolated, you'll begin to meet and understand people from different backgrounds. And slowly but surely, I believe that as people share experiences with diverse people, they'll begin to eliminate those knee-jerk feelings that yield the type of results we see in the "IAT". Those implicit associations will slowly break down. It'll take a while, but it'll be worth it.
Critics of affirmative action claim that diversity for diversity's sake is meaningless. They claim it's just a liberal buzzword that really isn't a goal. If we're aiming for excellence, why shouldn't that itself be the only goal that matters? Well, once again, I'd argue that it's tougher to quantify excellence that people say, and that academic excellence isn't the only goal of a college. It's a bit of a stretch, but I'd also say that businesses that are truly concerned about their employees shouldn't have profits as their sole metric of excellence either.
Why is diversity important? Well, in college I think it's obvious. To be truly successful, I think you need to be intellectually open-minded. You need to embrace new ideas and approaches to problems. You need to be able to negotiate and discuss and engage with all sorts of people. Diversity in and of itself IS worthwhile to a college. For a business, I think you can make a similar argument, but it's a little less strong. Still, if you want to serve your customers better and enrich the lives of your employees, I think it's important to expose them to different types of people. Should you do this at the expense of other aspects? Maybe, maybe not. For private businesses, it should be up to them. Same for private universities. I'd argue that public universities should make such an effort as well - they have an obligation to serve ALL the citizens, and I think affirmative action does just that.
A little while ago, MIT's magazine "Tech Review" ran a few articles on their affirmative action policies with regards to women. It prompted quite a few letters in response from their alumni, and one of the responses to one of those letters was amazingly articulate and insightful. (It was written by Qian Z. Wang.)
"...Criticisms of MIT's diversity efforts amount to little more than a knee-jerk reaction to affirmative action. I do not share the view that excellence and diversity are somehow opposite sides in a zero-sum game. Over the years MIT has become increasingly diverse without diminishing in excellence. This is in part because in affirmative action the most excellent candidates are not the ones who are really affected. Rather it is the most marginal candidates who are likely to lose out.
"In calling for a pure meritocracy and judgments based solely on the content of one's character, I'm afraid [critics] delude themselves into thinking that there could possibly be such clear objectivity in the college entrance process. Would the content of one's character be best judged by an SAT score or seen more wholly in a GPA? The truth is, any evaluation of a human being is necessarily fraught with biases and unevenness. Should not overcoming hardships, inequalities, and even discrimination to just come close to MIT's standards count toward a candidate's merit and character, even though the College Board can assign no score to it?
"Finally, I find it odd that there exist men and women of science who credit biodiversity for our very survival yet seem to think cultural diversity a concept beneath contempt, conjured up by anti-merit elitists to undermine society. But even a cursory glance at human history shows that the most advanced civilization at every age was also its most diverse. In fact, the stagnation and decline of every great civilization is inevitably preceded by a shift toward a homogeneous monoculture.
"Diverse people bring new ideas and different perspectives, which are the essential ingredients of a robust culture. As our beloved Institute is already more narrowly focused than many of its peer institutions, the greatest threat to MIT's excellence is certainly not too much diversity, but too little of it."
Wow. If only I was as articulate, and as succinct. Sorry: I'm not.
The last opposition to affirmative action comes from our guts. We know we're not racist. (Despite what the IAT tells you.) It just doesn't "seem" fair. We like to think that success is entirely a product of hard work and intelligence, but that's not true. I think this approach is akin to closing your eyes and sticking your figure in your ears and screaming "la la la la". Until blacks earn as much as whites, until women hold as many positions of power as men, there's a problem we need to fix. You might argue that certain groups are less likely to succeed in society for whatever reasons, and it's not our problem. I'd argue that you are entirely wrong: The measure of a great society is how it takes care of its least well-off citizens. If our institutions have made it so that certain people are less likely to succeed simply because of the color of their skin or other attributes that should be irrelevant, then we need to fix our society.
So, the "Implicit Association Test" is quite interesting. It's an ongoing project conducted by Harvard that analyzes how your subconscious may make certain associations that you don't necessarily make consciously. The results are powerful and sometimes disturbing. Before proceeding, I urge you to go here and take a couple of the tests. In particular, take the "Race", "Weapons", or "Skin-tone" tests. It requires a bit of time, but the results are quite revealing. Go on...I'll wait.
You took the test. What happened? At any rate, most of the test have revealed that we have implicit, subconscious biases. This may sound a bit pedantic - we all know this, right? But it's interesting to see it formalized by a test, especially since we probably all consider ourselves pretty unbiased, and certainly not racist. So if the results betrayed your conscious beliefs, what does that mean? Are you a racist? No, I don't think so. But it may imply other things.
In "Blink", Gladwell argues that our instinctive reactions determine a lot of things. If we subconsciously feel a certain bias against particularly ethnic groups, it's very tough to suppress that in social interactions. It comes out in certain ways that you have to work very hard to control. Maybe you adopt a more closed posture when you meet black people. Maybe you smile less or make a little less eye contact. In turn, they might react differently as well. It's not intentional at all, but it's pretty hard work to suppress your instincts, even if you want to. One way is to be incredibly self-aware, but people like that are pretty unusual. Another method might be to change society all together.
Extrapolating from Gladwell, if you assume that these tests are pretty accurate, and that his assertions about instinct are true, I think this is a pretty strong case for affirmative action. Affirmative action rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Many people believe it's reverse discrimination. They'd like to think that everything should be merit-based, and that if you look at race at all, you're being racist, regardless of if you're benefiting a minority or not. But here's a compelling argument that says that we're not merit-based in America. That even the most open-minded, liberal, selfless person can be subject to their own biased subconscious.
I don't think you can dismiss the effects of this - if a significant percentage of Americans have a subconscious bias against certain ethnic groups, it's going to manifest itself in certain detrimental ways. And I'd argue that one of those ways would be those minorities being less "successful" in society - getting less schooling, earning less money, advancing less far in their careers. So it's up to us to combat this. How? Well, I think there are two ways.
The short-term solution is that we need to level the playing field. If society is (intentionally or not) making certain groups less apt to succeed, I think we have an obligation to compensate for that. Affirmative action seems like a good place to start. There are many different methods that one can use to compensate, and I'm certainly not advocating all of them. Certainly, such an approach must be implemented with good judgment and temperance. Maybe colleges and businesses should more actively recruit minorities. Maybe they should do community outreach. Maybe they can encourage more interaction between people of different backgrounds. Maybe they can make an effort to accept and/or promote more minorities. Maybe they should have quotas to assure that the demographics of their institution accurately reflects the demographics of the country. Regardless of what particular method is used, I think it's a moral imperative to assure that everyone gets a fair shake. And if they aren't getting a fair shake, then we need to compensate for that.
There definitely can be some problems with affirmative action. Why shouldn't business and colleges operate like a meritocracy? Well, I think one can argue that it's pretty difficult to define merit, especially if society subconsciously subverts certain groups' means of attaining even defining merit. It's pretty easy to see this from a selfish point of view, if you're a white kid who gets 1500 on his SATs, and instead of you a black kid who only gets 1400 gets in, and all other methods of evaluation are pretty similar. But if you take into account the inherent biases that the IAT reveals, well, you could make a pretty compelling argument that those accomplishments are at least equivalent, because of what the black kid has had to overcome in societal bias.
Another possible argument against affirmative action is that it's certainly possible that some schools or some businesses shouldn't necessarily exhibit the same demographic makeup as the rest of the country. Maybe some races are particularly adept at certain types of academic study, and are naturally drawn to those fields. Maybe men are more interested in certain businesses than women, and thus are more likely to be skilled businessmen in those sectors. There's a danger of being too politically correct, and just assuming that race or gender or whatever doesn't matter at all. It does matter. It does help define who a person is. And I don't have an easy answer for that. I don't think it's a black and white issue (no pun intended). There are shades of gray. But I do think it's tempting and somewhat lazy to just accept that things are the way they are solely because certain groups of people naturally have preferences or tendencies, and so we shouldn't waste our time trying to subvert them. Furthermore, I think if we don't counter those stereotypes, they just get reinforced, and even if less women than men want to enter the business world, for instance, just giving up on encouraging women to enter business will eventually make it very hard for ANY woman to succeed in business.
I think the short-term argument of compensation is decently compelling, but only approach it from an "equalizing" mindset does nothing to solve the problem in the long-term. However, I believe affirmative action also has long-term benefits. And, ultimately, any approach we would take should work toward the eventual goal of true minority representation in colleges and businesses. How does affirmative action achieve this? Because it causes people to be exposed to other cultures and races, instead of just living within their own demographic. In a truly diverse environment, unless your goal is to be completely isolated, you'll begin to meet and understand people from different backgrounds. And slowly but surely, I believe that as people share experiences with diverse people, they'll begin to eliminate those knee-jerk feelings that yield the type of results we see in the "IAT". Those implicit associations will slowly break down. It'll take a while, but it'll be worth it.
Critics of affirmative action claim that diversity for diversity's sake is meaningless. They claim it's just a liberal buzzword that really isn't a goal. If we're aiming for excellence, why shouldn't that itself be the only goal that matters? Well, once again, I'd argue that it's tougher to quantify excellence that people say, and that academic excellence isn't the only goal of a college. It's a bit of a stretch, but I'd also say that businesses that are truly concerned about their employees shouldn't have profits as their sole metric of excellence either.
Why is diversity important? Well, in college I think it's obvious. To be truly successful, I think you need to be intellectually open-minded. You need to embrace new ideas and approaches to problems. You need to be able to negotiate and discuss and engage with all sorts of people. Diversity in and of itself IS worthwhile to a college. For a business, I think you can make a similar argument, but it's a little less strong. Still, if you want to serve your customers better and enrich the lives of your employees, I think it's important to expose them to different types of people. Should you do this at the expense of other aspects? Maybe, maybe not. For private businesses, it should be up to them. Same for private universities. I'd argue that public universities should make such an effort as well - they have an obligation to serve ALL the citizens, and I think affirmative action does just that.
A little while ago, MIT's magazine "Tech Review" ran a few articles on their affirmative action policies with regards to women. It prompted quite a few letters in response from their alumni, and one of the responses to one of those letters was amazingly articulate and insightful. (It was written by Qian Z. Wang.)
"...Criticisms of MIT's diversity efforts amount to little more than a knee-jerk reaction to affirmative action. I do not share the view that excellence and diversity are somehow opposite sides in a zero-sum game. Over the years MIT has become increasingly diverse without diminishing in excellence. This is in part because in affirmative action the most excellent candidates are not the ones who are really affected. Rather it is the most marginal candidates who are likely to lose out.
"In calling for a pure meritocracy and judgments based solely on the content of one's character, I'm afraid [critics] delude themselves into thinking that there could possibly be such clear objectivity in the college entrance process. Would the content of one's character be best judged by an SAT score or seen more wholly in a GPA? The truth is, any evaluation of a human being is necessarily fraught with biases and unevenness. Should not overcoming hardships, inequalities, and even discrimination to just come close to MIT's standards count toward a candidate's merit and character, even though the College Board can assign no score to it?
"Finally, I find it odd that there exist men and women of science who credit biodiversity for our very survival yet seem to think cultural diversity a concept beneath contempt, conjured up by anti-merit elitists to undermine society. But even a cursory glance at human history shows that the most advanced civilization at every age was also its most diverse. In fact, the stagnation and decline of every great civilization is inevitably preceded by a shift toward a homogeneous monoculture.
"Diverse people bring new ideas and different perspectives, which are the essential ingredients of a robust culture. As our beloved Institute is already more narrowly focused than many of its peer institutions, the greatest threat to MIT's excellence is certainly not too much diversity, but too little of it."
Wow. If only I was as articulate, and as succinct. Sorry: I'm not.
The last opposition to affirmative action comes from our guts. We know we're not racist. (Despite what the IAT tells you.) It just doesn't "seem" fair. We like to think that success is entirely a product of hard work and intelligence, but that's not true. I think this approach is akin to closing your eyes and sticking your figure in your ears and screaming "la la la la". Until blacks earn as much as whites, until women hold as many positions of power as men, there's a problem we need to fix. You might argue that certain groups are less likely to succeed in society for whatever reasons, and it's not our problem. I'd argue that you are entirely wrong: The measure of a great society is how it takes care of its least well-off citizens. If our institutions have made it so that certain people are less likely to succeed simply because of the color of their skin or other attributes that should be irrelevant, then we need to fix our society.
Comments:
I think this argument is pretty sound, but I find that the proponents of it would selectively apply it to those institutions that are "important". Schools, Companies. I think a concept like this that is valid needs universal application for all misrepresented races. Take the NBA for example. Just look at the misproportion of of races there! Affirmative action to the rescue! You think I'm stupid. Well, you took the IAT, are you just being instinctive? Isn't our society better off with diversity? Oh, only diversity in "important" institutions. Yeah. Okay. How about the Military. How many black fighter pilots are there? Affirmative action to the rescue. I'm being absurd for a reason. The very flaw of the IAT arguement is that if it is to applied, it cannot be selectively applied but instead must be UNIVERSALLY applied, as the concluson IAT makes is that we cannot help but be subjective to our own detriments and instead must compensate for it. To this end I can steadfastly proclaim that the selective application of affirmative action is inherently subjective and therefore flawed.
# posted by 
: April 4, 2005 at 1:41 AM
: April 4, 2005 at 1:41 AM
I intentionally chose sports to be absurd. The knee jerk reaction of it not being important was the exact point I was trying to make. Selective application of importance, relevance, and impact are at some level a subconscious, subjective decision. Who gets to draw the lines of relevance for affirmative action. While professional sports may seem ridicuous, I ask you to just consider the cultural message, stigma, atmosphere, and stereotypes that the NBA carries, and I ask you if more cultural diversity would benefit or detract from SOCIETY'S benefit from the NBA. I think I can argue that SOCIETY would be better with more NBA diversity, and not in a trivial manner either. How many youths in america religiously watch the NBA and emulate it's players? What message could/would be sent to SOCIETY with racially diverse and harmonious teammates? OK, you won't entertain the NBA and affirmative action. How about affirmative action for elected political figures? Maybe change the requirements to win an election by basing the value of your votes on 'diversity' of the voters who chose you. What about basing the value of the votes on the 'diversity' points your gender/race/sexual orientation qualifies for?
For the record, I want affirmative action at strip-clubs. I've suffered enough rejection in pursuit of my dreams as an exotic dancer at the Cheetah-club, just because I didn't happen to be born a woman. My struggle in the flesh-peddling industry has forced me to face many challenges that women strippers wouldn't dream of. Shouldn't that count for something? Who are they to tell me that my naked strutting wouldn't enhance the diversity of the populace that frequents the legendary Cheetah-club and allow American society to better accept a naked man? At the very least, they can compensate me for my struggles to obtain my current job as a waiter at Hooter's.
For the record, I want affirmative action at strip-clubs. I've suffered enough rejection in pursuit of my dreams as an exotic dancer at the Cheetah-club, just because I didn't happen to be born a woman. My struggle in the flesh-peddling industry has forced me to face many challenges that women strippers wouldn't dream of. Shouldn't that count for something? Who are they to tell me that my naked strutting wouldn't enhance the diversity of the populace that frequents the legendary Cheetah-club and allow American society to better accept a naked man? At the very least, they can compensate me for my struggles to obtain my current job as a waiter at Hooter's.
# posted by : April 5, 2005 at 3:23 AM
: April 5, 2005 at 3:23 AM
One problem I have with affirmative action is that if you give people an edge over equally qualified candidates because they are black/female/gay or whatever, and they supposedly need extra help because that has held them back over the years, then you're implying that the chosen group they belong to was the biggest influence of their (lack of) success. For instance, having MIT accept more women and blacks, but disregarding the wealth of the parents and area the applicants grew up in, is missing the point, if you ask me. Artificially increasing the number of black students admitted will end up allowing more mediocre black kids from rich families to get in at the expense of white kids from poor areas (like Dan Dwyer, who had to overcome far more than anyone else I know). I had one brilliant friend in high school get turned down by MIT, while another much less intelligent person got in...the person rejected was an asian male, the one accepted a female. While the girl was smart, and therefore not "bringing down" MIT directly, she would not have added nearly as much as the guy, and in effect would have caused the intellectual atmosphere at MIT (which is the whole point of going there as opposed to a less prestigous school) to suffer.
How about religious background? Not enough people of Jewish decent in some field because they struggle against bigots? No problem, just give them an artifical edge...ah, here's a good candidate: David Berman. I'm sure he needs the extra help, having Jewish parents. We'll just ignore the fact that his dad went to Harvard Law School, and assume that being Jewish, he had a much harder time in life than say...Dan Dwyer, the white kid with poor protestant parents from rural Missouri, one of which dug ditches for a living, the other of which basically went crazy while Dan was in high school, causing Dan to have to support and run his family as a 16 year old. It seems ridiculous to give this example, because we know the people involved. But when MIT or anyone else artifically increases numbers of some chosen group, this kind of crap happens. And people like Berman would get an edge over people like Dan Dwyer (obviously I don't think that Dave hasn't earned everything from merit, because he has - my point is to illustrate that it's very easy to see how a less qualified kid than Dave of some group would be given preference over a white protestant kid like Dan Dwyer who REALLY had to overcome a lot of crap).
(And BTW, comparing racial diversity to biodiversity is retarded, and hardly even deserves the dignity of a response. But unfortunately I am not at all surprised that some "smart" MIT person would say something like that, or that some "smart" MIT editor chose to include that comment.)
-Dave Shear
How about religious background? Not enough people of Jewish decent in some field because they struggle against bigots? No problem, just give them an artifical edge...ah, here's a good candidate: David Berman. I'm sure he needs the extra help, having Jewish parents. We'll just ignore the fact that his dad went to Harvard Law School, and assume that being Jewish, he had a much harder time in life than say...Dan Dwyer, the white kid with poor protestant parents from rural Missouri, one of which dug ditches for a living, the other of which basically went crazy while Dan was in high school, causing Dan to have to support and run his family as a 16 year old. It seems ridiculous to give this example, because we know the people involved. But when MIT or anyone else artifically increases numbers of some chosen group, this kind of crap happens. And people like Berman would get an edge over people like Dan Dwyer (obviously I don't think that Dave hasn't earned everything from merit, because he has - my point is to illustrate that it's very easy to see how a less qualified kid than Dave of some group would be given preference over a white protestant kid like Dan Dwyer who REALLY had to overcome a lot of crap).
(And BTW, comparing racial diversity to biodiversity is retarded, and hardly even deserves the dignity of a response. But unfortunately I am not at all surprised that some "smart" MIT person would say something like that, or that some "smart" MIT editor chose to include that comment.)
-Dave Shear
# posted by : April 5, 2005 at 11:14 AM
: April 5, 2005 at 11:14 AM
Wow. Lots of comments. Thanks for the thoughtful replies. I have lots to respond to, so I'll take them one at a time. First, Dan's:
I think any argument can be pushed to its logical absurdity. I think I explicitly said that affirmative action should be applied with judgment and temperence. Furthermore, it would be insanely stupid to say that affirmative action should be applied to every single realm, forced upon every industry. There are places where it applies, and places where it doesn't.
The IAT is not necessarily universal. It affects situations in which social interaction is important. Its implications are somewhat universal because those unconsciously-controlled social interactions affect a lot of things, but not necessarily everything. Furthermore, if your argument is that we don't go far enough in compensating for our biases, well, I agree with you. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't compensate where we can: It's akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. No solution isn't going to be flawed - but I think affirmative action is less flawed than just giving into our societal biases and letting them dig deeper and deeper holes.
All this begs the question of where it should apply? And, if I wasn't clear in my post, I think that should be up to each institution on its own. MIT should be able to have an affirmative action program without being deemed "racist". Each company should be able to decide if it wants to implement affirmative action. I simply argued that it has a lot of benefits, and some of those benefits aren't that easy to see at a first glace. Furthermore, I argued that affirmative action is not reverse discrimination, and shouldn't be labeled thusly by its opponents, as that's a drastic oversimplification (and mislabeling) of what's going on.
So, let's look at the examples that you use. First, the NBA. What is the goal of the NBA? To make money. How does it make money? By showing interesting sporting events, derived from the skill of the competitors. How do you measure merit in the NBA? Unlike other jobs, it's quite easy: How good are they at basketball? There's a very explicit requirement for playing in the NBA. Should the NBA lower that requirement? Would it benefit them at all? I'd say no. And they should be free to make that decision.
That said, I think it's naive to suggest that affirmative action doesn't and shouldn't even be considered in the slightest in the NBA. Partially, I think there's a false impression of what affirmative action is. It doesn't just mean quotas. It can mean outreach as well. I would argue that Yao Ming is a great example of affirmative action. Someone that would never have been considered before because of his race was offered an opportunity. What happened because of it? Well, it benefitted the Rockets in two ways. One is that he turned out to be pretty good. The second is that now there are tons and tons of Chinese people who are Rockets (and Yao) fans. They're still entertaining. They still earn revenue. They still play good basketball. And maybe more Chinese players will be considered because of their skills. Everyone benefits except for the guy whose job Yao took. Another question with regards to the NBA: For a sport that has so many black players, how many black coaches and executives are there? Is it representative? If not, why not? If they can play the game, why can't they run it?
Your second example is a little more interesting. First of all, the miliary is not a private institution, so it should have different standards. I'd argue that the government has a greater obligation to look out for the common good and to ensure that its citizens all get a fair shake. But if we're talking about the military (which I believe does a pretty good job of assure that minorities are represented, not just among the enlisted, but among the officers), there's a more important goal there. There obviously have to be minimum standards (and note that nowhere do I state that any of these institutions should lower there standards - the notion of getting the "best" people possible is ludicrous - if that's the case, let's pay fighter pilots $12 million dollars a year), and if you don't meet those standards, then you shouldn't be defending the country.
Once again, though, I'd argue that affirmative action also has a place in the military. A more diverse military might have a better time in other countries, especially if we're going to engage in so much nation-building. Hell, at this point, the military can't afford to be rejecting anyone, although perfectly competent gays are still being booted for violating "don't ask, don't tell."
At any rate, it's not black and white (once again, no pun intended). Institutions should be able to decide for themselves if they should engage in affirmative action - and my argument is that more should, as it would not only benefit those institutions, but society as well. Do I think we should LEGISLATE mandated affirmative action for private institutions? No. So, Dan, you're on your own in pursing a stripper job. Best of luck.
I think any argument can be pushed to its logical absurdity. I think I explicitly said that affirmative action should be applied with judgment and temperence. Furthermore, it would be insanely stupid to say that affirmative action should be applied to every single realm, forced upon every industry. There are places where it applies, and places where it doesn't.
The IAT is not necessarily universal. It affects situations in which social interaction is important. Its implications are somewhat universal because those unconsciously-controlled social interactions affect a lot of things, but not necessarily everything. Furthermore, if your argument is that we don't go far enough in compensating for our biases, well, I agree with you. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't compensate where we can: It's akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. No solution isn't going to be flawed - but I think affirmative action is less flawed than just giving into our societal biases and letting them dig deeper and deeper holes.
All this begs the question of where it should apply? And, if I wasn't clear in my post, I think that should be up to each institution on its own. MIT should be able to have an affirmative action program without being deemed "racist". Each company should be able to decide if it wants to implement affirmative action. I simply argued that it has a lot of benefits, and some of those benefits aren't that easy to see at a first glace. Furthermore, I argued that affirmative action is not reverse discrimination, and shouldn't be labeled thusly by its opponents, as that's a drastic oversimplification (and mislabeling) of what's going on.
So, let's look at the examples that you use. First, the NBA. What is the goal of the NBA? To make money. How does it make money? By showing interesting sporting events, derived from the skill of the competitors. How do you measure merit in the NBA? Unlike other jobs, it's quite easy: How good are they at basketball? There's a very explicit requirement for playing in the NBA. Should the NBA lower that requirement? Would it benefit them at all? I'd say no. And they should be free to make that decision.
That said, I think it's naive to suggest that affirmative action doesn't and shouldn't even be considered in the slightest in the NBA. Partially, I think there's a false impression of what affirmative action is. It doesn't just mean quotas. It can mean outreach as well. I would argue that Yao Ming is a great example of affirmative action. Someone that would never have been considered before because of his race was offered an opportunity. What happened because of it? Well, it benefitted the Rockets in two ways. One is that he turned out to be pretty good. The second is that now there are tons and tons of Chinese people who are Rockets (and Yao) fans. They're still entertaining. They still earn revenue. They still play good basketball. And maybe more Chinese players will be considered because of their skills. Everyone benefits except for the guy whose job Yao took. Another question with regards to the NBA: For a sport that has so many black players, how many black coaches and executives are there? Is it representative? If not, why not? If they can play the game, why can't they run it?
Your second example is a little more interesting. First of all, the miliary is not a private institution, so it should have different standards. I'd argue that the government has a greater obligation to look out for the common good and to ensure that its citizens all get a fair shake. But if we're talking about the military (which I believe does a pretty good job of assure that minorities are represented, not just among the enlisted, but among the officers), there's a more important goal there. There obviously have to be minimum standards (and note that nowhere do I state that any of these institutions should lower there standards - the notion of getting the "best" people possible is ludicrous - if that's the case, let's pay fighter pilots $12 million dollars a year), and if you don't meet those standards, then you shouldn't be defending the country.
Once again, though, I'd argue that affirmative action also has a place in the military. A more diverse military might have a better time in other countries, especially if we're going to engage in so much nation-building. Hell, at this point, the military can't afford to be rejecting anyone, although perfectly competent gays are still being booted for violating "don't ask, don't tell."
At any rate, it's not black and white (once again, no pun intended). Institutions should be able to decide for themselves if they should engage in affirmative action - and my argument is that more should, as it would not only benefit those institutions, but society as well. Do I think we should LEGISLATE mandated affirmative action for private institutions? No. So, Dan, you're on your own in pursing a stripper job. Best of luck.
Last time I checked, Private institutions did have the ability to decide for themeselves how and when to apply affirmative action. I thought your post was directed at taking an opened-minded approach to the benefits of affirmative action applied in more institutions, based on the IAT. While there have been times that it has been fun to take other arguments to thier logical extremes and absurdity, I don't consider my points to qualify as this type of arguement. I chose the NBA and military and politics as a way to broaden the concept of "educating the populace" which I think is the correct driving force behind affirmative action in universities. I think the goal of universities is to enlighten the student body in as many facets as possible, in order to advance the education of the population and prepare them for advancing our global intellect. That being said, isn't it a huge assumption and very close-minded stance to just assume that you being a minority means you will get extra "points" because you are "diverse"? What about handi-capped people? Are they getting a bonus at MIT? So many factors on so many layers contribute to a persons ability to enlighten the minds of others to new ways of thinking, that the individual seems to get short-changed in deference to a pre-supposed "diversity" quota. I do support a level playing field, and I do support rewarding a person for overcoming obstacles. I think a person with a 3.8 who had a part time job during high school to help mom and dad with the mortgage should be rewarded over a 4.0 who's parents are doctors. I think a kid from Compton whos older brother was killed in a gang stabbing should be evaluated differently than a kid from the Hamptons whos older brother is a post-doc and already resident at MIT. I think each case deserves attention. I do not think the box you check for the "race" category should be considered blindly. I'm surprised no one touched my affirmative action for political leaders suggestion. On the surface, it would seem to me that the supporters of affirmative action should logically jump at this idea and run with it. It seems to fit all of the criteria being applied to the base proponent arguement. And I will pre-emptively shock and awe the "we don't inlcude racial points in choosing our leaders because we want the best of the best without compromise" arguement, because this argument presupposes where it is appropriate to discriminate and compensate in the name of "enlightening" the populace based on diversity, and where it is not okay to do so. I would argue that as a people we should either embrace the real idea of compensation for race or reject it, not selectively apply it - because to me - enlightenment is not limited to those in school, and usually it is not those people who are dragging us down from being uncultured and close-minded.
# posted by : April 6, 2005 at 1:22 AM
: April 6, 2005 at 1:22 AM
Ok, now on to Dave. To be honest, Dave, most of your comments seem to blatantly ignore my post in favor of your making a point. I don't mind if you disagree, but I'd appreciate a discussion that didn't seem to simply disregard so much of what I've said. At any rate, let's start in:
You said: "For instance, having MIT accept more women and blacks, but disregarding the wealth of the parents and area the applicants grew up in, is missing the point, if you ask me."
Nowhere did I say that all of those other factors should be disregarded. In fact, I think that they are critical components of what should be taken into account. Additionally, in the U.S. the location you're from and your wealth are quite intricately tied to what race you are. Why pay attention to those factors, but ignore the race factor?
"Artificially increasing the number of black students admitted will end up allowing more mediocre black kids from rich families to get in at the expense of white kids from poor areas (like Dan Dwyer, who had to overcome far more than anyone else I know)."
What? This doesn't make any sense. Katonio's a good example of someone who had to overcome a lot as well, by the way. At any rate, first of all, one of my points is that it's pretty tough to define the term "mediocre" adequately, especially when you're talking about college admissions.
Secondly, why would it be black kids from rich families replacing white kids from poor families? Why wouldn't it be poor black kids replacing poor white kids? And if you're going to use wealth as such an important factor, why are you so willing to disregard race? They're tied together, and I contend that race can just as easily be an obstacle to success - that was exactly the point of the IAT.
"I had one brilliant friend in high school get turned down by MIT, while another much less intelligent person got in..."
I think when you take individual examples, you miss the larger point. Who are you to determine "brilliant"? One of my points is that even that term has a bias to it.
"the person rejected was an asian male, the one accepted a female. While the girl was smart, and therefore not "bringing down" MIT directly, she would not have added nearly as much as the guy,"
Says who? Says you? Why are your criteria so important, and mine aren't? I think having more women at MIT is a worthwhile pursuit. More importantly, MIT thinks that.
Something else I didn't mention is that I think a goal of any college is to educate as many people as much as possible. If this guy is so brilliant, as you claim, maybe he'll succeed anywhere, whereas maybe this smart-ish girl will be able to go on to great things and realize much more of her potential from going to MIT. I think that is a worthwhile goal as well.
"and in effect would have caused the intellectual atmosphere at MIT (which is the whole point of going there as opposed to a less prestigous school) to suffer."
If after reading what I wrote, if you still believe that the whole point of going to MIT or any school is solely the "intellectual atmosphere", well, then, I don't know what to say. There are less concrete (and maybe even more important) aspects of life, and of an education, than just what you label "intelligence". In fact, I will once again claim that an important part of an intellectual atmosphere is a diversity of ideas.
"...We'll just ignore the fact that his dad went to Harvard Law School, and assume that being Jewish, he had a much harder time in life than say...Dan Dwyer, the white kid with poor protestant parents from rural Missouri, one of which dug ditches for a living, the other of which basically went crazy while Dan was in high school, causing Dan to have to support and run his family as a 16 year old."
Didn't I say that affirmative action should be applied with judgment and temperance? You're setting up a straw man argument to shoot down the whole system. In particular, it's absurd to apply it to the MIT application process, which very carefully looks at all of these aspects.
I would hope that someone like Dan Dwyer would get more of a shot than me, assuming everything else was identical but our backgrounds. (Background includes race, location of birth, wealth, etc.)
I would additionally hope that someone just like me otherwise, but was underrepresented (female, black, whatever) would also get in instead of me.
The example you use is silly because what happens without affirmative action is precisely the opposite of what upsets you: Let say you have two candidates who, if you ignore background/race/heritage/family history/whatever, have the same aptitude. But one's white and one's black. More often than not, the black one will have a more difficult life than the white one. Furthermore, I'd also say that if they have the exact same board scores and GPA, I'm willing to bet that the black one will actually benefit MIT more and benefit more from MIT because they likely would have had to overcome more to achieve what they have already.
A situation similar to the one you describe will happen MORE without affirmative action than with it. You're making the same argument as me, you just refuse to acknowledge that race plays a part in the argument, for some reason. Affirmative action does not mean judging someone solely based on race - it means acknowledging it as a factor, just like many, many other factors, and taking its effects into account.
"(And BTW, comparing racial diversity to biodiversity is retarded, and hardly even deserves the dignity of a response."
I whole-heartedly disagree, and will be similarly petulant, refusing to tell you why.
You said: "For instance, having MIT accept more women and blacks, but disregarding the wealth of the parents and area the applicants grew up in, is missing the point, if you ask me."
Nowhere did I say that all of those other factors should be disregarded. In fact, I think that they are critical components of what should be taken into account. Additionally, in the U.S. the location you're from and your wealth are quite intricately tied to what race you are. Why pay attention to those factors, but ignore the race factor?
"Artificially increasing the number of black students admitted will end up allowing more mediocre black kids from rich families to get in at the expense of white kids from poor areas (like Dan Dwyer, who had to overcome far more than anyone else I know)."
What? This doesn't make any sense. Katonio's a good example of someone who had to overcome a lot as well, by the way. At any rate, first of all, one of my points is that it's pretty tough to define the term "mediocre" adequately, especially when you're talking about college admissions.
Secondly, why would it be black kids from rich families replacing white kids from poor families? Why wouldn't it be poor black kids replacing poor white kids? And if you're going to use wealth as such an important factor, why are you so willing to disregard race? They're tied together, and I contend that race can just as easily be an obstacle to success - that was exactly the point of the IAT.
"I had one brilliant friend in high school get turned down by MIT, while another much less intelligent person got in..."
I think when you take individual examples, you miss the larger point. Who are you to determine "brilliant"? One of my points is that even that term has a bias to it.
"the person rejected was an asian male, the one accepted a female. While the girl was smart, and therefore not "bringing down" MIT directly, she would not have added nearly as much as the guy,"
Says who? Says you? Why are your criteria so important, and mine aren't? I think having more women at MIT is a worthwhile pursuit. More importantly, MIT thinks that.
Something else I didn't mention is that I think a goal of any college is to educate as many people as much as possible. If this guy is so brilliant, as you claim, maybe he'll succeed anywhere, whereas maybe this smart-ish girl will be able to go on to great things and realize much more of her potential from going to MIT. I think that is a worthwhile goal as well.
"and in effect would have caused the intellectual atmosphere at MIT (which is the whole point of going there as opposed to a less prestigous school) to suffer."
If after reading what I wrote, if you still believe that the whole point of going to MIT or any school is solely the "intellectual atmosphere", well, then, I don't know what to say. There are less concrete (and maybe even more important) aspects of life, and of an education, than just what you label "intelligence". In fact, I will once again claim that an important part of an intellectual atmosphere is a diversity of ideas.
"...We'll just ignore the fact that his dad went to Harvard Law School, and assume that being Jewish, he had a much harder time in life than say...Dan Dwyer, the white kid with poor protestant parents from rural Missouri, one of which dug ditches for a living, the other of which basically went crazy while Dan was in high school, causing Dan to have to support and run his family as a 16 year old."
Didn't I say that affirmative action should be applied with judgment and temperance? You're setting up a straw man argument to shoot down the whole system. In particular, it's absurd to apply it to the MIT application process, which very carefully looks at all of these aspects.
I would hope that someone like Dan Dwyer would get more of a shot than me, assuming everything else was identical but our backgrounds. (Background includes race, location of birth, wealth, etc.)
I would additionally hope that someone just like me otherwise, but was underrepresented (female, black, whatever) would also get in instead of me.
The example you use is silly because what happens without affirmative action is precisely the opposite of what upsets you: Let say you have two candidates who, if you ignore background/race/heritage/family history/whatever, have the same aptitude. But one's white and one's black. More often than not, the black one will have a more difficult life than the white one. Furthermore, I'd also say that if they have the exact same board scores and GPA, I'm willing to bet that the black one will actually benefit MIT more and benefit more from MIT because they likely would have had to overcome more to achieve what they have already.
A situation similar to the one you describe will happen MORE without affirmative action than with it. You're making the same argument as me, you just refuse to acknowledge that race plays a part in the argument, for some reason. Affirmative action does not mean judging someone solely based on race - it means acknowledging it as a factor, just like many, many other factors, and taking its effects into account.
"(And BTW, comparing racial diversity to biodiversity is retarded, and hardly even deserves the dignity of a response."
I whole-heartedly disagree, and will be similarly petulant, refusing to tell you why.
Shear: "and in effect would have caused the intellectual atmosphere at MIT (which is the whole point of going there as opposed to a less prestigous school) to suffer."
Berman: "If after reading what I wrote, if you still believe that the whole point of going to MIT or any school is solely the "intellectual atmosphere", well, then, I don't know what to say. There are less concrete (and maybe even more important) aspects of life, and of an education, than just what you label "intelligence". In fact, I will once again claim that an important part of an intellectual atmosphere is a diversity of ideas."
Shear again: I never said that the whole point of going to college was to do academic stuff - I agree 100% that college and life goes far beyond that, and the things you get out of college only just start at the academic level. What I said very specifically above was the point of going to MIT VERSUS SOMEWHERE ELSE else was to be exposed to the more intellectual atmosphere. If you want a diversity of ideas, MIT would be well down on the list - think about it: if you want a bunch of different kinds of people, with different backgrounds, interests, and talents, why would you go to a college known as a good place for science but mediocre or downright bad for most other fields? Try somewhere like Harvard or Stanford instead, where people come in with a much wider range of interests and talents (ie, not just science), or for that matter, a college outside of the US. Why did I, like you, choose MIT over the University of Maryland? What was the key difference? It wasn't diversity - MD would be more diverse. It was very simply because MIT had a reputation for having brighter people, and being around them would add to your academic experience. (that and the reputation would help you get better and higher paying jobs, and help you get into better grad schools). You'd of course get much more than just academic stuff out of college, but you'd get all that other stuff at each place. In fact, I'd argue that if you want to see a better range of approaches to life, and you want a well rounded education outside of academics, MD would be better (going somewhere where the majority of the students aren't hardcore nerds who actually know how to be social and enjoy their college experience).
I think you're right that if you're very careful, it could be a good idea to conclude something like compare Katonio and Dan Dwyer and conclude that they both had it rough as far as parents, money, surroundings, etc., but since Katonio also had to overcome racist people in effect trying to hold him back, he has done more with what he had to work with. I just think that once you start considering more than a handful of people for something (like 10,000 applications for MIT), you really can't be that careful, and it falls back to taking the best candidates from whatever groups you divide them into, be it gender, religion, or race. And I would still go back to my previous point that the supposed benefit of MIT vs. some other school is the greater intellectual atmosphere, so selecting anyone but the people that would best contribute to that is going the wrong way. Yes, it will bring up those who are less than the best, but it will bring down those who are among the very top. A good example is AP Calculus in high school vs. Calculus at MIT - because the people at MIT were better at math, the course there was able to go faster and deeper, and the students were able to get a much better understanding of the subject. In my experience, I still felt frustrated in most of my classes at MIT, as I thought they were slowed down by people who weren't picking it up as quickly as I was, and I would argue that if MIT had simply chosen the very brightest people available, that wouldn't have happened as much.
-Dave Shear
Berman: "If after reading what I wrote, if you still believe that the whole point of going to MIT or any school is solely the "intellectual atmosphere", well, then, I don't know what to say. There are less concrete (and maybe even more important) aspects of life, and of an education, than just what you label "intelligence". In fact, I will once again claim that an important part of an intellectual atmosphere is a diversity of ideas."
Shear again: I never said that the whole point of going to college was to do academic stuff - I agree 100% that college and life goes far beyond that, and the things you get out of college only just start at the academic level. What I said very specifically above was the point of going to MIT VERSUS SOMEWHERE ELSE else was to be exposed to the more intellectual atmosphere. If you want a diversity of ideas, MIT would be well down on the list - think about it: if you want a bunch of different kinds of people, with different backgrounds, interests, and talents, why would you go to a college known as a good place for science but mediocre or downright bad for most other fields? Try somewhere like Harvard or Stanford instead, where people come in with a much wider range of interests and talents (ie, not just science), or for that matter, a college outside of the US. Why did I, like you, choose MIT over the University of Maryland? What was the key difference? It wasn't diversity - MD would be more diverse. It was very simply because MIT had a reputation for having brighter people, and being around them would add to your academic experience. (that and the reputation would help you get better and higher paying jobs, and help you get into better grad schools). You'd of course get much more than just academic stuff out of college, but you'd get all that other stuff at each place. In fact, I'd argue that if you want to see a better range of approaches to life, and you want a well rounded education outside of academics, MD would be better (going somewhere where the majority of the students aren't hardcore nerds who actually know how to be social and enjoy their college experience).
I think you're right that if you're very careful, it could be a good idea to conclude something like compare Katonio and Dan Dwyer and conclude that they both had it rough as far as parents, money, surroundings, etc., but since Katonio also had to overcome racist people in effect trying to hold him back, he has done more with what he had to work with. I just think that once you start considering more than a handful of people for something (like 10,000 applications for MIT), you really can't be that careful, and it falls back to taking the best candidates from whatever groups you divide them into, be it gender, religion, or race. And I would still go back to my previous point that the supposed benefit of MIT vs. some other school is the greater intellectual atmosphere, so selecting anyone but the people that would best contribute to that is going the wrong way. Yes, it will bring up those who are less than the best, but it will bring down those who are among the very top. A good example is AP Calculus in high school vs. Calculus at MIT - because the people at MIT were better at math, the course there was able to go faster and deeper, and the students were able to get a much better understanding of the subject. In my experience, I still felt frustrated in most of my classes at MIT, as I thought they were slowed down by people who weren't picking it up as quickly as I was, and I would argue that if MIT had simply chosen the very brightest people available, that wouldn't have happened as much.
-Dave Shear
# posted by : April 6, 2005 at 11:15 AM
: April 6, 2005 at 11:15 AM
Alright, moving on to Dan's second reply (and using quoted replies to refresh memory:
"I thought your post was directed at taking an opened-minded approach to the benefits of affirmative action applied in more institutions, based on the IAT."
Well, it's just a blog. I don't exactly know what my goal is. One was to defend the current use of affirmative action. Another was to present the idea that maybe we should consider affirmative actions in other institutions. It started off as the implications of the IAT, but then I think I went a little further.
"While there have been times that it has been fun to take other arguments to thier logical extremes and absurdity, I don't consider my points to qualify as this type of arguement."
I didn't mean to imply that those ideas were absurd, but I think the more logical leaps you take, the less saliency the original point has. Colleges have very specific goals of education. Businesses have different goals. But I do think the idea that the IAT must be universally applied to every field if it is to be taken seriosly at all is a logical leap nearing the point of silliness.
"I chose the NBA and military and politics as a way to broaden the concept of "educating the populace" which I think is the correct driving force behind affirmative action in universities."
Well, what are we talking about? Educating all of society? That's not the goal of any of those institutions. The goals of schools are really only to educate those who pay to go there. I'm not so crazy a liberal as to state that all institutions should be forced to institute an affirmative action policy because it's beneficial to all of society. No, rather, I think many institutions should consider adopting some sort of affirmative action policy in order to further their own goals. For colleges, I think it's pretty obvious. For businesses, it might be a little less obvious how to do that. For some places, it might be completely counter-productive, even if it would be more "fair".
"So many factors on so many layers contribute to a persons ability to enlighten the minds of others to new ways of thinking, that the individual seems to get short-changed in deference to a pre-supposed "diversity" quota...I do not think the box you check for the "race" category should be considered blindly."
I agree that there are many, many factors beyond race. Now, I do think that the purpose of the IAT was to show you that race is more of a factor that people acknowledge, but yes, it would be great if we could look at every single factor. I think schools have this luxury more so that other institutions. That said, the argument seems to be that "looking at race isn't perfect, so we shouldn't do anything", and that seems counter-productive. If using race (and we can easily throw ethnicity in there - we're not just talking about black/white/Asian, but maybe southern, northern,midewestern,Japanese, Taiwanese,Mexican, etc...) as a course measurement of not only "diversity" but also "hardship" is closer to accurate than not using a measurement at all, I say use it. Neither method will be perfectly fair, but I think no affirmative action is much less fair.
"I'm surprised no one touched my affirmative action for political leaders suggestion. On the surface, it would seem to me that the supporters of affirmative action should logically jump at this idea and run with it. It seems to fit all of the criteria being applied to the base proponent arguement."
Wasn't this somewhat the original point of the Electoral College? Well, certainly not to take into account the black population (or women), but to assure that you had to get a diversity of the votes in order to win the Presidency? Of course, we've regressed a bit, but that was the original concept, if I'm not mistaken.
Would I support such an idea? Well, in practice, it's quite radical, and has tons of implementation problems. But ideally, would I want a President who could appeal to the widest range of people? Maybe, maybe not. He'd be a great uniter, but I'd have a hard time seeing someone be a good leader while also trying to have as broad an appeal as possible. Of course, given the choice between Clinton (trying to have as broad an appeal as possible), and Bush (trying only to appeal to his base), well, you know who I would choose.
At any rate, I think it's not true to say that just because I support affirmative action in certain situations that somehow I need to support it in all situations. Once again, I'm not advocating forcing affirmative action onto anyone - I'm just suggesting that it has benefits, and that institutions would be wise to find intelligent ways of implementing affirmative action programs appropriate to their situation.
Post a Comment
"I thought your post was directed at taking an opened-minded approach to the benefits of affirmative action applied in more institutions, based on the IAT."
Well, it's just a blog. I don't exactly know what my goal is. One was to defend the current use of affirmative action. Another was to present the idea that maybe we should consider affirmative actions in other institutions. It started off as the implications of the IAT, but then I think I went a little further.
"While there have been times that it has been fun to take other arguments to thier logical extremes and absurdity, I don't consider my points to qualify as this type of arguement."
I didn't mean to imply that those ideas were absurd, but I think the more logical leaps you take, the less saliency the original point has. Colleges have very specific goals of education. Businesses have different goals. But I do think the idea that the IAT must be universally applied to every field if it is to be taken seriosly at all is a logical leap nearing the point of silliness.
"I chose the NBA and military and politics as a way to broaden the concept of "educating the populace" which I think is the correct driving force behind affirmative action in universities."
Well, what are we talking about? Educating all of society? That's not the goal of any of those institutions. The goals of schools are really only to educate those who pay to go there. I'm not so crazy a liberal as to state that all institutions should be forced to institute an affirmative action policy because it's beneficial to all of society. No, rather, I think many institutions should consider adopting some sort of affirmative action policy in order to further their own goals. For colleges, I think it's pretty obvious. For businesses, it might be a little less obvious how to do that. For some places, it might be completely counter-productive, even if it would be more "fair".
"So many factors on so many layers contribute to a persons ability to enlighten the minds of others to new ways of thinking, that the individual seems to get short-changed in deference to a pre-supposed "diversity" quota...I do not think the box you check for the "race" category should be considered blindly."
I agree that there are many, many factors beyond race. Now, I do think that the purpose of the IAT was to show you that race is more of a factor that people acknowledge, but yes, it would be great if we could look at every single factor. I think schools have this luxury more so that other institutions. That said, the argument seems to be that "looking at race isn't perfect, so we shouldn't do anything", and that seems counter-productive. If using race (and we can easily throw ethnicity in there - we're not just talking about black/white/Asian, but maybe southern, northern,midewestern,Japanese, Taiwanese,Mexican, etc...) as a course measurement of not only "diversity" but also "hardship" is closer to accurate than not using a measurement at all, I say use it. Neither method will be perfectly fair, but I think no affirmative action is much less fair.
"I'm surprised no one touched my affirmative action for political leaders suggestion. On the surface, it would seem to me that the supporters of affirmative action should logically jump at this idea and run with it. It seems to fit all of the criteria being applied to the base proponent arguement."
Wasn't this somewhat the original point of the Electoral College? Well, certainly not to take into account the black population (or women), but to assure that you had to get a diversity of the votes in order to win the Presidency? Of course, we've regressed a bit, but that was the original concept, if I'm not mistaken.
Would I support such an idea? Well, in practice, it's quite radical, and has tons of implementation problems. But ideally, would I want a President who could appeal to the widest range of people? Maybe, maybe not. He'd be a great uniter, but I'd have a hard time seeing someone be a good leader while also trying to have as broad an appeal as possible. Of course, given the choice between Clinton (trying to have as broad an appeal as possible), and Bush (trying only to appeal to his base), well, you know who I would choose.
At any rate, I think it's not true to say that just because I support affirmative action in certain situations that somehow I need to support it in all situations. Once again, I'm not advocating forcing affirmative action onto anyone - I'm just suggesting that it has benefits, and that institutions would be wise to find intelligent ways of implementing affirmative action programs appropriate to their situation.
