Comment on Affirmative Action debate

[TomCollins]

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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.

[lehighguy]

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

[sam h]

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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?

[lehighguy]

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

[shootaa]

gg craig = winnarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[latefordinner]

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

[ojc02]

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.

[ShakeZula06]

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.

[ojc02]

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.

[ojc02]

[ QUOTE ]
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?!