Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

Use this thread to comment on the affirmative action debate between craigthedeac and TomCollins.

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

Affirmative Action FTL

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

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Affirmative Action FTL

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Really? I thought you were pro-AA [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

I am waiting for craig to make the first post. It's kinda hard to refute it unless he makes a claim about it.

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

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I am waiting for craig to make the first post. It's kinda hard to refute it unless he makes a claim about it.

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A solid strategy for this debate IMO. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

Tom, in your definition you didn't specifically mention government mandated AA. Is that what we are talking about? My opinion on that is different from a private company using some form of AA.

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

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Tom, in your definition you didn't specifically mention government mandated AA. Is that what we are talking about? My opinion on that is different from a private company using some form of AA.

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This is an excellent point. There are a couple of ways it can debated:

1) Should government be allowed to use it (and what are the limits that should be imposed, if any)?

2) Should the government mandate affirmative action in private organizations?

3) Should private orginizations use affirmative action (is it a good thing for them)?

4) Should private orginizations be allowed to use affirmative action?

For all practical purposes, I would like the debate to be centered around 1 and 3.

If I am successful in my debate, #2 will be useless. #4 is another issue, and I personally believe that all private orginizations should be able to exclude or include whoever they please. I also support the rights of the public to boycott or protest against racist orginizations as well.

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

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Affirmative Action FTL

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Really? I thought you were pro-AA [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

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Oh how wrong you are, my child. I don't believe I've ever addressed the topic on this board, but meh, I'm quite against it.

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

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This is an excellent point. There are a couple of ways it can debated:

1) Should government be allowed to use it (and what are the limits that should be imposed, if any)?

2) Should the government mandate affirmative action in private organizations?

3) Should private orginizations use affirmative action (is it a good thing for them)?

4) Should private orginizations be allowed to use affirmative action?

For all practical purposes, I would like the debate to be centered around 1 and 3.

If I am successful in my debate, #2 will be useless. #4 is another issue, and I personally believe that all private orginizations should be able to exclude or include whoever they please. I also support the rights of the public to boycott or protest against racist orginizations as well.


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I think #1 will be the main issue people will want to discuss. Even though the overall merits of private businesses and organizations using AA are certainly worthy of a good discussion.

I have mixed feelings on the issue (#1 that is). I know so many blacks stepped into the battersbox down 0-1 or 0-2 in the count because of past injustice. Even the greatest hitters in history had bad averages when down in the count. So I am sympathetic to the goals of helping people out who are down in the count thru little or no fault of there own.

However, I just cannot get over the problem of having government using race to give benefits to one group at the expense of others. As a result, I am opposed to government mandated AA based on race. I am much more sympathetic to giving benefits, especially in education, based on means, not race. Since blacks are disproportionaly poor, they would benefit from means related AA, without using race.

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Even the supreme court has rejected the "redress past discrimination" argument. Perhaps another starting point?

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Even the supreme court has rejected the "redress past discrimination" argument. Perhaps another starting point?

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I don't think that Supreme Court decisions or even the Constitution should be the issue in this debate. I'm not going to argue a "legal" case, more of what things "should" be.

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

Still seems to easy. There is a reason the court rejected it, not just law.

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Still seems to easy. There is a reason the court rejected it, not just law.

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I agree. It seems like you are starting off by limiting discussion to the weakest (and least interesting) of the pro-AA arguments.

Much better approaches, IMO, would be to look at:

(1) Can some modicum of AA be a reasonable way to deal with current levels of racial discrimination?

(2) Do governments or private entities sometimes have a compelling interest in creating a more diverse body of X (employees/students/etc) and how much should this interest be taken into account?

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3) Does affirmative action even accomplish its stated goals, and at what cost.

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gg craig = winnarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

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The problem with any discussion about AA is that it is an attempt to remedy a structural problem on an individual level which has all sorts of unintended consequences

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From Craig:

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Many New Deal policies gave a leg-up to whites in order to ensure a racial hierarchy. For example, the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act helped factory workers (mostly white) but not agricultural laborers (mostly black) which was advocated by Southern politicians. Katznelson also argues that loans that promoted suburban expansion were aimed at whites. Moreover, he criticizes the GI Bill, which was allegedly color-blind, but favored white veterans by giving local governments control over the benefits, which prevented Southern blacks from having a say.

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Man, I really hate this argument. Gee, New Deal advantaged white folk - therefore we need to enact new policies to correct this problem.

NO!!! This is classic mis-diagnosis. New Deal is the party at fault here. We shouldn't be enacting new policies to deal with the bad effects of New Deal, we should cut out the problem at the root and eliminate New Deal.

New Deal sucking is not an argument for affirmative action, it's an argument for getting rid of New Deal.

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it looks like Craig has copy and pasted (seems to have re-arranged some of it) most if not all of his first post from this online paper.

lol plargarisimaments.

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From Craig:

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The need for affirmative action in the workplace:
“People of color and women are more likely to be unemployed, employed at lower wages, and hold jobs with a lower base pay.” (ACLU)

• The average woman loses approximately $523,000 in wages over a lifetime due to disparities. (ACLU)

The National Urban Institute showed unfair hiring practices in a study where it sent equally qualified applicants on interviews for entry-level jobs. The applicants were “coached to have similar levels of enthusiasm and ‘articulateness.’ The young white men received 45% more job offers than their African American co-testers; whites were offered the job 52% more often than Latino ‘applicants.’”

Keep in mind that using affirmative action to help correct these disparities doesn’t mean just letting any under-represented person have a job or get accepted at a school. A person’s race or gender is merely one factor that ought to be given weight. It should be viewed as allowing these groups, who are otherwise unfairly evaluated on the whole, to get their foot in the door and achieve an even playing field. Diversity in the workplace and in schools is a legitimate state interest.

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Craig has a point here although he doesn't really make what I think is a key point: These disparities indicate the existence of agency problems in a lot of these companies. It is the responsibility of those in the hiring department of these companies to make decisions that maximize shareholder wealth, they are clearly not doing so.

However, it is the responsibility of the owners to ensure that their hiring department hires the right people at the right price. It is their responsibility and they are being punished by not making as much money as they could. The costs are internalized, the incentives are correct.

There is no inherent value to "diversity" (for most companies), but the lack of it probably implies a lack of hiring efficiency.

Companies would benefit from an increased focus on being meritocratic. The idea of legislated affirmative action at private firms makes me sick.

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it looks like Craig has copy and pasted (seems to have re-arranged some of it) most if not all of his first post from this online paper.

lol plargarisimaments.

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OMG! More plagiarism?!?! wtf?!

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Craig:
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My argument is that affirmative action is an effective tool to redress our nation’s historic and present discrimination against women and people of color. Although since the civil rights era we have progressed greatly, opportunity for these groups is still far too limited.


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This paper:
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AFFIRMATIVE ACTION is one of the most effective tools for redressing the injustices caused by our nation’s historic discrimination against people of color and women, and for leveling what has long been an uneven playing field. A centuries-long legacy of racism and sexism has not been eradicated despite the gains made during the civil rights era. Avenues of opportunity for those previously excluded remain far too narrow. We need affirmative action now more than ever.

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Craig:
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Many people misinterpret Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous quote of judging people “by the content of their character, not the color of their skin” and imply that we should be completely color-blind. However, Dr. King understood that there was no avoiding color and gender. To assume that a completely color-blind (and gender-blind) approach is actually possible would be extremely naive.


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This paper:
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Foes of affirmative action frequently misinterpret Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. They assert that Dr. King was calling for color-blind solutions for our nation’s ills when he said, “men should be judged by the con*tent of their character, not the color of their skin.” This implication does a severe disservice to the legacy of one of our nation’s major heroes in the struggle for equal justice. Dr. King knew, as we know today, that there is no sidestepping color and gender in our society.

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More to come if I notice them...

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

While I'll believe that he used this paper as a source, I don't think the quoted passages constitute plagiarism. I've briefly compared the post to the paper myself and I haven't found anything either.

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Honestly, that doesn't seem terribly close. I think it's possible he read the article at some point and the structure of the argument stuck in his mind. Maybe I'm being naive...

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

I used to be anti-affirmative action, but I've warmed up to it a bit. The problem, basically, is that (for college acceptance, at any rate), there just isn't enough individual attention given to applications to get the benefits of AA without the drawbacks.

I think some very moderate AA along with other more helpful programs is the way to go. GTech, for example, improved its minority student % just using outreach programs, which are more costly but vastly more effective.

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I've briefly compared the post to the paper myself and I haven't found anything either.

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There's two above you...

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

With regards to the plagiarism accusations, none of what you've gathered actually constitutes plagiarism, as iron81 said. I cited the ACLU and admittedly used some of the same arguments that you will find in the article. To imply that I copy/pasted most of my paper is ridiculous and won't find any instances of that. Your example of the MLK argument being plagarized is particularly ridiculous.

My interpretations are my own and there are numerous arguments within my post that are not located in that article. I'm not completely familiar with how this forum operates, but when I debated in high school the idea was to use arguments/evidence from sources which you cite (because they're more qualified than you, etc.) as well as arguments of your own.

There's a difference from me submitting my post to a journal or something and using it in a debate context. Also, there's a lot of education that arises from using another person's arguments and developing them yourself, which I have done and have to do as the debate continues. If you beleive that what I have written is inappropriate for this debate then the moderators can feel free to close the debate or substitute someone else in. However, I disagree that what I've done is plagarism and I think that the spirit of debate allows for the cited use of other people's work. Let's also not forget that the majority of the paper is not found, in any form, in that article.

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I cited the ACLU and admittedly used some of the same arguments that you will find in the article.

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I'm not sure if putting "ACLU" in perentheses counts as citing, and you certainly never linked the article so I'm not sure how you could "admittedly" use the same arguments as it.
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To imply that I copy/pasted most of my paper is ridiculous and won't find any instances of that.

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The two paragraphs I've shown are look copy/pasted, with some re-arranging and some re-structuring. Maybe you didn't, but it certainly looks that way. What else am I supposed to figure, that you came up with the exact same argument line for line without coming across the article?
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I'm not completely familiar with how this forum operates, but when I debated in high school the idea was to use arguments/evidence from sources which you cite

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Yes, but you didn't cite them. You passed them off as your own.
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If you beleive that what I have written is inappropriate for this debate then the moderators can feel free to close the debate or substitute someone else in.

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Well, in your defense, looking throughout your post and the article I didn't find anything else. You''ll understand my concern though when one of your first paragraphs is nearly word for word with an article you didn't cite.
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However, I disagree that what I've done is plagarism and I think that the spirit of debate allows for the cited use of other people's work.

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You. Didn't. Cite. The. Article.
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Let's also not forget that the majority of the paper is not found, in any form, in that article.

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From what I can tell, you are correct.

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

I apologize for your concerns and I hope that you understand that my intentions were good. I did not comb through my post for proper citations with the same effort that I would for an english paper. For this reason, I ended my post by saying: "Any and all sources or full citations are available upon request." I was not aware that this debate required meeting some standard of originality or citations, or I would've been more careful. I had a different idea of what these debates were and my background on debate is perhaps different than yours.

To summarize:
1) there's no copy/pasting
2) my source was cited several times but the full citation was not given (but was available)
3) the majority of my post was completely separate from that article
4) there's nothing wrong with using other people's arguments in debates, my only mistake was that I could've done a better job with citations
5) overall, why would I plagiarize or at least intentionally do something shady? I have little to gain here except reputation amongst a forum that I don't even regularly participate in. It's not like I had a paper due for a class and wanted to cheat.

Hopefully this establishes that my intention was good and that at worst I am guilty of technically not citing as well as I should have. I do think that the severity of the issue is being overblown seeing that nothing was copy/pasted, the alleged violations represent a very small percentage of my paper, and that the context is a debate. I did make an effort to cite my arguments and left myself an out with my last statement. So, I apologize for what at the time I assumed was sufficient citation.

Hopefully we now can focus on the debate itself...

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

ojc02:
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From Craig:

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Many New Deal policies gave a leg-up to whites in order to ensure a racial hierarchy. For example, the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act helped factory workers (mostly white) but not agricultural laborers (mostly black) which was advocated by Southern politicians. Katznelson also argues that loans that promoted suburban expansion were aimed at whites. Moreover, he criticizes the GI Bill, which was allegedly color-blind, but favored white veterans by giving local governments control over the benefits, which prevented Southern blacks from having a say.

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Man, I really hate this argument. Gee, New Deal advantaged white folk - therefore we need to enact new policies to correct this problem.

NO!!! This is classic mis-diagnosis. New Deal is the party at fault here. We shouldn't be enacting new policies to deal with the bad effects of New Deal, we should cut out the problem at the root and eliminate New Deal.

New Deal sucking is not an argument for affirmative action, it's an argument for getting rid of New Deal.

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Perhaps I didn't make this clear, but with the New Deal policies my point is not that we need policies that directly counter it.

Rather, my point is that these policies established a structure/hierarchies which was discriminatory. Given that this has been well-established now, it is impossible to just remove these structures. Penetration is needed and I see affirmative action as an opportunity to just that.

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

JackWhite:
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I have mixed feelings on the issue (#1 that is). I know so many blacks stepped into the battersbox down 0-1 or 0-2 in the count because of past injustice. Even the greatest hitters in history had bad averages when down in the count. So I am sympathetic to the goals of helping people out who are down in the count thru little or no fault of there own.

However, I just cannot get over the problem of having government using race to give benefits to one group at the expense of others. As a result, I am opposed to government mandated AA based on race. I am much more sympathetic to giving benefits, especially in education, based on means, not race. Since blacks are disproportionaly poor, they would benefit from means related AA, without using race.

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Thanks for mentioning this. In fact, giving benefits based on financial status/background is something that I am an advocate for. When I first began to explore the issues, your main concern was my main concern as well.

I ultimately decided that I thought both race and financial background were important and now advocate giving benefits based on both situations seperately. If I was to choose one, I would pick financial background, because I think the arguments about resources/means which you mentioned and I talk about in the other thread are most important.

However, ignoring race is problematic because there are instances of racism (see my reference to the study of job applicants) still today. So, black people that are even financially well-off that have all these means that you allude to still have barriers. Using your analogy, they still start "behind in the count."

I think if you're an advocate of one you have to be an advocate of the other, given that you determine that racial barriers exist.

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

ojc02:
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From Craig:

[ QUOTE ]
The need for affirmative action in the workplace:
“People of color and women are more likely to be unemployed, employed at lower wages, and hold jobs with a lower base pay.” (ACLU)

• The average woman loses approximately $523,000 in wages over a lifetime due to disparities. (ACLU)

The National Urban Institute showed unfair hiring practices in a study where it sent equally qualified applicants on interviews for entry-level jobs. The applicants were “coached to have similar levels of enthusiasm and ‘articulateness.’ The young white men received 45% more job offers than their African American co-testers; whites were offered the job 52% more often than Latino ‘applicants.’”

Keep in mind that using affirmative action to help correct these disparities doesn’t mean just letting any under-represented person have a job or get accepted at a school. A person’s race or gender is merely one factor that ought to be given weight. It should be viewed as allowing these groups, who are otherwise unfairly evaluated on the whole, to get their foot in the door and achieve an even playing field. Diversity in the workplace and in schools is a legitimate state interest.

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Craig has a point here although he doesn't really make what I think is a key point: These disparities indicate the existence of agency problems in a lot of these companies. It is the responsibility of those in the hiring department of these companies to make decisions that maximize shareholder wealth, they are clearly not doing so.

However, it is the responsibility of the owners to ensure that their hiring department hires the right people at the right price. It is their responsibility and they are being punished by not making as much money as they could. The costs are internalized, the incentives are correct.

There is no inherent value to "diversity" (for most companies), but the lack of it probably implies a lack of hiring efficiency.

Companies would benefit from an increased focus on being meritocratic. The idea of legislated affirmative action at private firms makes me sick.

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I'm not sure I follow you. Are you implying that companies ought to seek out these groups of applicants and pay them their "market price" rather than their true value in order to please their shareholders?

If so, I disagree, but it probably gets into a capitalism debate which is a whole different box of marbles.

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

xorbie:
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I used to be anti-affirmative action, but I've warmed up to it a bit. The problem, basically, is that (for college acceptance, at any rate), there just isn't enough individual attention given to applications to get the benefits of AA without the drawbacks.

I think some very moderate AA along with other more helpful programs is the way to go. GTech, for example, improved its minority student % just using outreach programs, which are more costly but vastly more effective.

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Would you mind going into a bit more detail, especially what you mean by: "there just isn't enough individual attention given to applications to get the benefits of AA without the drawbacks."?

Also, more moderate programs are interesting and relevant to the discussion. Perhaps you could go into more detail there as well.

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

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Affirmative Action FTL



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how come you rule so much?

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Affirmative Action FTL



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how come you rule so much?

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Just lucky I guess
[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

I believe that anyone who supports affirmative action by definition must hold in contempt the concept of individual liberty.

natedogg

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

This debate is getting very very long. I am really unable to fully respond to very long posts while at work, so my response time may be fairly slow. I intend to simplify the debate in the next post.

Re: Comment on Affirmative Action debate
 

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I'm not sure I follow you. Are you implying that companies ought to seek out these groups of applicants and pay them their "market price" rather than their true value in order to please their shareholders?

If so, I disagree, but it probably gets into a capitalism debate which is a whole different box of marbles.

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No no no, I'm saying that companies should pay the minimum they can for a given ability level. The implication of what you were saying was that companies are paying more for white males of a given ability level than they are for a minority candidate of the same ability. I think an example would demonstrate my point nicely. If you have a Black female candidate (BF) and a white male candidate (WM) of the same level then you should pay them the minimum you can to get them to work for you. If the going rate for the BF is $20/hr and the going rate for WM is $40/hr then rationally you should hire the BF for $21/hr to ensure that they will work for you. More companies (behaving rationally) will continue to do this and the salaries will equalize somewhere in between, depending on the proportion of BF : WM.

So, I'm not saying they should pay them their "true value". I'm saying they should maximize their profit and if they do, the best situation for all will result. Affirmative action is unnecessary, meritocracy FTW.

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This debate is getting very very long. I am really unable to fully respond to very long posts while at work, so my response time may be fairly slow. I intend to simplify the debate in the next post.

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Good idea, I attempted to start to condense the debate at the end of my post which would be a good starting point.

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I believe that anyone who supports affirmative action by definition must hold in contempt the concept of individual liberty.

natedogg

[/ QUOTE ]Finally someone gets to the heart of the matter. imo - all the arguments made in the debate seem silly and secondary compared to the concept of individual liberty. I don't know how you can debate AA without discussing the core principle.

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Agreed upon definition:

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"A policy or a program that seeks to redress past discrimination through active measures to ensure equal opportunity, as in education and employment."

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Craig's comment:
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Diversity in the workplace and in schools is a legitimate state interest.

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How does one go from correcting past discrimination and ensuring equal opportunity to arguing that diversity in a legitimate interest? It would appear that you are using AA to push a different ideal. I think that either you need to change your definition of AA or you need to drop this argument.

Just curious, "should the NBA and NFL actively try and recruit more Whites and Asians to play in their leagues? Surely, these groups are underrepresented on a massive scale. It certainly would seem silly to go hire a bunch of short Asian players to play in the NBA because we know they would not be as good as the players currently playing. Yet, couldn't one argue that diversity is good for the team and a compelling state interest? We would never force sports teams to do this because we understand the purity of competition and the effects are quite obvious. Yet, the AAers have no problem forcing this upon businesses who compete in other areas.