In Europe we now have a similar discussion, with the European Commission wanting to have at least 40% women in the supervisory board of every publicly traded company.

It's a horrible idea, that will damage the position of those women who could have gotten on these boards on the merits of their own qualities.

But in Brazil, for example, they have used affirmative action to great effect.

Tell me all about it.

To your argument Octavious I respond that if someone becomes racist because they lost out thanks to affirmative action, that is up to them to fix. We should not be responsible for them being racist - that's their own failing.

I agree that using income is a much better way to handle the inequities of society, instead of race. But as long as that's not on the table, AA based on race is better than nothing.

Ideally there would be seats in university allocated proportionally to representation in population of the income levels. What I mean is - if people making less than $40k are 50% of the population, then they have 50% of the seats.

If we believe that there is no inherent biological difference between people based on race or class, this should not bother us, because within the brackets there would be admissions based on merit. Thus is can be safely assumed that the strongest applications in the lowest income bracket are at least as good of students as the strongest applications in the highest income bracket, even if the latter's applications are more traditionally impressive (thanks to their access to resources, tutors, the like).

The SAT is racially biased, for example. Using that type of thing as a blanket merit decider isn't equitable.

@Thucy - your argument that the inherently racist systems is better than nothing - even though you *fully* admit it is grossly flawed - is stupid. Let's say I have a bottle of rat poison that will kill me slowly, and a cyanide pill which will kill me fast. I walk away and take neither. You take the rat poison because it's the lesser of evils.

No...you get rid of the bad systems that everyone knows is bad and you PUT a steak on the table...i.e. an income-based AA system. It's *not* on the table because the racist version is.

http://www.economist.com/node/21543494

Note this paragraph especially, but all the ones before it as well:

"In practice, many of the fears surrounding university quotas have not been borne out. Though still preliminary, studies tend to show that cotistas, as they are known, have performed academically as well as or better than their peers. That may be because they have replaced weaker “white” students who got in merely because they had the money to prepare for the exam."

http://www.economist.com/node/21562955

"So the government is seeking a different route to social justice: admissions quotas. Last month the president, Dilma Rousseff, signed a law that gives federal universities until 2016 to reserve half of their places for students from state schools. Of those, half must go to very poor students, and black, mixed-race or Amerindian students must be admitted according to their share of the local population."

It's not like they don't also have debate about it, but it is showing results.

krellin:

The difference between you and me is that I am being realistic. The truth is, if affirmative action is struck down and/or ended, it will not be replaced by the income-based system I mentioned, and you know it. There are a million political reasons why it would not.

Therefore the debate in practice is between racial quotas and nothing. This is the reason a defeat for affirmative action would be a victory for racism - because it would have the effect of displacing a large number of minorities from university, at a time when we desperately need to equalize the gaps between our racial groups.

Personal anecdote time - my roommate is a black computer science major from a poor part of Chicago who told me he doesn't think he would have been admitted without UT's admissions policies on race. He told me I could imagine where he might be now if he'd not gotten into college. I could. It wouldn't be pretty.

Whereas most white kids who apply to UT (note that the existence of a few exceptions, i.e. white kids who get screwed, is not a valid refutation of the statistic that white people have more advantages in this country) have something else to fall back on if they are not admitted because a minority was admitted in their place.

Just compare the net worths of white people on average and minorities, and you will immediately see why this is the case.

Also I want to respond again to Octavious by saying that what is more important than individual feelings on race (re: your implication that AA would create more white racists) is the racism of the system itself. The goal is to reform the system and develop a society in which all races have proportionally equal amounts of power, both political and economic, and in other less tangible respects.

Affirmative action in universities is a reliable way to move towards this goal, so a few anachronistic white racists are a personal problem who will be ultimately castigated as the power relations change and minorities are empowered to a level commensurate with their fair share.

What this means, essentially, is that it will matter less if white people are bitterly racist if they, as a group, have less power to discriminate against minorities.

The most important and prevalent type of racism today is not a consciously held contempt for others or a conscious superiority complex, but instead a systemic oppression of minorities carried out by aggregate groups and institutions, and not so much by individually racist persons.

That is a myth - there are of course some people who are unabashedly more racist than others. But the truth is that all of us are racist in some respects because of the system we participate in and perpetuate, as well as because of subconscious biases and preferences (check out Project Implicit if you don't believe me).

Yeah, I read the first economist article and I have two objections to the Brazilian policy, I'll start with the minor problem. The minor problem is here:

"What stands out from a decade of debate about affirmative action is that it is being implemented in a very Brazilian way. Each university has taken its own decisions. The federal government has tried to promote the policy, but not impose it."

-I don't find that very strong. Either you believe - and have good reason to believe - that there is a national problem, and you introduce a national solution (of course, you can make a mathematical formula for these quotas where the specific racial distribution of an area yields a specific outcome in quota) or you don't. Now the federal government is just saddling up Universities - that should be thinking about education and research - with a highly political problem. Better to impose your view and make it clear that the government, and not University boards, are the one responsible for the decision.

The main problem, however, that I'm having with any AA is that I believe that society in itself is progressing to solving these problems itself. In the 1960s, the Dutch government still fired any female civil servant who got married. I worked in a building that was built in roughly the same period of time, and in the old setup, it had toilets marked "men", "women", "gentlemen", "ladies". The latter two were reserved for all those who had been through University. How times have changed.

I recently heard a story about a prize being awarded to "best non-black runner" in a marathon, because the sport had become so dominated by people from - I believe - the eastern part of Africa (apparently their genes give their body a very small edge that on average allows them to take a few seconds of the race). Well, as a non-black myself, I can tell you I don't have the slightest interest in who won that "prize". If people from Eastern Africa are good runners, then I'll happily watch them be the first to cross the finish line.

Meritocracy is the answer, and abolishing discrimination, not inverting it.

The marathon exmaple is not relevant because it is indeed a slight genetic variation among races. Very very rarely do those count for anything but in that case they happen to.

In the case of intellectual and social ability, however, there is zero genetic variance between the races. For this reason, if a meritocracy produces results in which certain races are not getting their share of the population, then something is wrong with your society, because you are either disproportionately favoring one group over others or you are systematically discriminating against another, or both.

Affirmative action is useful because first of all it is equitable and *still merit-based* but second of all because it serves over time to eliminate the problem it was created to address.

Another way of phrasing this is that in a system where minorities are discriminated against institutionally, meritocracy *is* discrimination.

I do not see evidence that society is making significant strides on its own to eliminate racism. In the last few decades things have stagnated if not gotten worse. Criminalization of black men, "hipster racism", "the new racism", the effect of the 2008 crisis, racism towards Arabs and those perceived to be Muslim.... there is no meaningful sense in which racism is going away on its own.

And even if it were, that is no consolation to the college aged minorities of today who are being shafted by the system.

"I agree that using income is a much better way to handle the inequities of society, instead of race. But as long as that's not on the table, AA based on race is better than nothing."

"The difference between you and me is that I am being realistic. The truth is, if affirmative action is struck down and/or ended, it will not be replaced by the income-based system I mentioned, and you know it. There are a million political reasons why it would not."

I actually disagree. I think that if racial AA were ended, income-based is exactly what people would head for. It was a big topic of conversation already in law school when I was there, after the Seattle Schools case. I think it's exactly what people would head for next.

"The SAT is racially biased, for example."

What exactly do you mean by this?

I don't believe we fully exploited the legal means yet. One thing I think should be introduced is anonymous job applying. Making a rule that makes it illegal - for most jobs - to require or even voluntarily put your name on a job application. In that way, people who have names that are typical for their cultural background wouldn't be rejected, or accepted, because of their names.

Re: "I do not see evidence that society is making significant strides on its own to eliminate racism." Beside the election of a black President? Beside the fact that of the last five US Secretaries of State I believe three were women, and two were black?

I don't know what hipster or new racism is, I'm curious to learn. How are black men criminalized and by whom?

"For this reason, if a meritocracy produces results in which certain races are not getting their share of the population, then something is wrong with your society, because you are either disproportionately favoring one group over others or you are systematically discriminating against another, or both. "

-I believe it means there was, rather than is, something wrong with your society. Just take a look at how much has changed from your grandparents' generation to your parents' generation, and then from theirs to yours. Equalizing takes time, but it is definitely happening (in Europe, at least, and as far as I can tell from the news in the US as well, but I'm interested in learning why if I'm mistaken).

I used to be opposed to affirmative action, but then I was asked whether more injustice would result from keeping it in place, or not having it at all, and I quickly changed my mind upon reflection. It'd be nice if I thought people could not be horribly racist, or if I thought every race had equal opportunities, but honestly, we still live in an extremely racist world.

As for, "There are people who have never had a racist thought in their body who start to fester resentment and anger against other races because affirmative action exists." If affirmative action "turns" you racist, you were already racist. I didn't get into Princeton, and I never for a second blamed the people who did get in. Heck, if anything, I resent the legacy child biases at prestigious universities way, way more, but I'm not anti-Ivy League graduates.

"...the truth is, if affirmative action is struck down and/or ended, it will not be replaced by the income-based system I mentioned, and you know it. There are a million political reasons why it would not..."

Bullshit. People said health care could never get passed either. It's fools that hold tight to *bad* policy and say nothing can ever change that cause things to never change.

If all the people that pour their heart and soul into KEEPING the bad policy in place would put an equal effort into *changing* it, maybe it would change.

You want to live in Reality-ville, Thucy -- here's reality: The race-baiting community (Al Ahasrton, rainbow Coalition, etc...) these organization - and the individuals that run them - have a vested financial interest in keeping racially-motivated programs in place. You are falling victim to their financial interests, instead of standing for what is *right*.
You anecdote about your buddy that (supposedly) wouldn't have made it to whatever college...so what, he couldn't have made it *anywhere* without soem AA program? Or is that just the excuse we use to keep these programs in place and displace the students that actually *earn* a spot.

If you friend is talented and smart, he would have found a college -- you can't base your argument on a negative that was never explored. What you *can* base an argument on is "Student with X gpa didnt' get in when a student with X-0.3 made it in, all other academics being equal" That is just bullshit and you know it.

As often, in his own abbrasive way krellin is right. :-)

Truth is sometimes harsh...but real men fear dishonesty more than they fear abrasiveness.

You'd love the Netherlands.

Can someone point me to a source describing hipster racism that isn't Jezebel? Google had that come up as the first result, I got a quarter of the way through the article and couldn't finish because the writing was godawful.

Black president > Hipster racism

No redhouse - I love the United States, where I am free to express my opinion, where I work in a multi-cultural workplace in which everyone around me *earned* their job through their talent.

And there's the rub...AA might get you in to school....but it won't help you get or keep a job when you aren't skilled enough or smart enough...so in fact it is a *dis-service*...

"Meritocracy is the answer, and abolishing discrimination, not inverting it. "

See, the thing is, this kind of ignores the massive structural advantages white people have within American society. Whether it's the economic advantages of being disproportionally wealthy as a direct legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, economic segregation, and direct favoritism by federal, state, and municipal governments, or the cultural advantages like having literacy as a path to prominence instead of hangable offense for 300 of the 400 years since people have been in America, white people in general have a much easier path in America than black people, or hispanic people, or native people. but hey, let's all pretend the playing field is level the moment a set of programs seeks to undo this massive historical benefice as a direct result of racism.

Since we mentioned east Africans and running, I thought it might be worth pointing out that the genetic issue is still very much in question. The average Kenyan athlete has run 8-10 thousand miles by the time they have completed high school; the average american runner only 2-4k. Running long distances consistently over time changes the human body at the molecular level.
Excellence in distance and ultra-distance running is displayed in several different ethnic groups around the world and it seems more likely to be linked to culture than genetics. Kenyans, Ethiopians, the Tarajumara of Mexico, and the Amish of northern Indiana are pretty different ethnically, but all stand out in the world of distance running. The jury is still out on how much is genetic.
Just food for thought. Sorry if I hijacked the thread.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jpIT0PuafLg/RnxoRIRE5-I/AAAAAAAAAIU/Ty4Eg-qQunQ/s1600-h/cartoon4.png

>implying all white people in American history are the same person and oppressed all black people in American history

I get the point you're trying to make but... that cartoon doesn't make that point very well.

"Running long distances consistently over time changes the human body at the molecular level. " Proof please. Interesting concept

Also an interesting concept -- Slavery enhanced African Americans by "weeding out" the physically weak and thus caused them to dominate physically dominated sports....an idea Howard Cossel got canned for stating, but for which in **any other species** we would say is simple adaptation of species and "Duhh....of course..."

...AND....if this is true, is there then also a corrolary regarding personality traits, etc? If you accept one premise, you must accept them all....but that's a scary discussion for people that don't like honesty. NOT a moral argument, by the way...purely a scientific idea.

^I agree.

Yeah I'm also with President Eden.

You're a rather agreeable sort? Is that some sort of genetic disposition? Or do mumm and dudd beat you whenever you disagree?