Wednesday, June 26, 2013

What A Shock, I Don't Support Affirmative Action

To those who unjustly benefit from AA (and, of course, their allies), I'm a racist.  Of course I'm not, but it makes them feel better to call me one.  Perhaps they're racist against Asians:
There's a certain irony in the fact that white students usually bring these affirmative action lawsuits (and that defenses of affirmative action are often framed in terms of white privilege).  The evidence seems to show that if completely race-neutral admissions policies were adopted at colleges and universities, the admissions rates for blacks and hispanic would fall dramatically . . . but the admissions rates for whites wouldn't change much.  The primary beneficiaries would be Asian students, who would fill nearly four out of five of the extra admissions slots.

One of the oddest facts about college admissions is that everyone seems to be aware that colleges have imposed restrictive admissions quotas to keep Asians underrepresented in their student bodies, akin to the "Jewish quotas" which used to exist at Ivy League schools until the 1950s.  But no one seems particularly bothered about systemic, institutionalized racial discrimination against a large group of Americans.  I'm not even aware of any concerted effort by Asian community groups to shame universities into stopping this.
I would support such a meritocracy no matter who benefited from it.

7 comments:

PeggyU said...

Agreed, as long as spots at American universities go to US citizens, with limits on the number of foreign students (which I believe there are).

mmazenko said...

You can legitimately have a meritocracy only when all people have equal opportunity and equal protection. A level playing field is imperative, and you know that does not exist in schools and neighborhoods across this country.

Darren said...

So unless it's utopian-perfect, we have to *build in* some inequality. Nice to know where you stand on that.

mmazenko said...

As it is to know where you stand on equal rights and access. Thinking your own privilege is everyone's reality is a dangerous point of view. Shame you'll doubtfully ever see that.

allen (in Michigan) said...

Affirmative action was a stupid, nasty, venomous idea when it was enacted and it hasn't gotten better with age.

Much to my surprise the backlash against affirmative action has always been muted where it's shown up at all and it's a testament to the inherent decency of the American people who aren't lefties that affirmative action didn't result in a politically potent white supremacist movement. Apparently, "the masses" so often sneered at by lefties are smart enough to realize that two wrongs don't make a right. They generally result in a third wrong.

Darren said...

You can be a self-loathing "white privilege" guy all day long if you like, but that doesn't make it OK to discriminate against Asians because of it.

neko said...

Unfortunately, what it is all really leading to is not a meritocracy but a mediocrity.