Affirmative action - Good or bad?

[Cosmos]

How do you guys feel about affirmative action, aka "positive discrimination"? I'm very mixed on the idea. While I do think that it's important for minorities who have been discriminated against to be able to get the education/jobs they need to have a successful life, I'm also against it if it leads to someone getting a position they're not qualified for simply because of their race.

 

[Vitriol]

Justice scalia nailed this for me- AA does not work, it leads to higher drop out rates as people are promoted beyond their ability on the colour of their skin and penalises poor whites rather than rich patriarchs.

In the old world we call the same policies patronage and they are synonomous with corruption and inefective rule.

 

[AnOminous]

Bad but temporarily necessary. Again it's a Justice that nailed it for me. Justice O'Connor. Specifically her opinion in this case: Grutter v. Bollinger. Similarly, on the scattered opinions in Gratz v. Bollinger, not at all merely coincidentally issued the same day, I agree with O'Connor's concurrence.

Note: one opinion rejects one form of affirmative action (Gratz) and O'Connor concurs, while the other affirms another form of affirmative action. I would also recommend Kennedy's dissent in Grutter as predictive of how cases like this might go in the future.

Hate to respond to a genuine question with "here go read a few hundred pages of legal argle-bargle" but it's not really possible to respond to that question in any more efficient way and hey, you asked.

 

[Sailor_Jupiter]

I have no idea. On one hand, it breeds incompetence, but on the other hand it might help people in need of a job... I don't know. I'd hate to think I got a job just because of my race, and not because I was any good at it. Maybe blacks are different??

 

[QI 541]

Bad but temporarily necessary.

Is it temporary in practice? People tend to be unwilling to give up their own benefits, and any politician who tries to end it would probably piss off a large group of voters.

 

[Pickle Inspector]

Equal opportunity is important and I don't agree with positive discrimination but the situation is complicated though since some groups are actively discriminated against and sometimes for unstandable reasons, for example if you're a small business owner why risk hiring a young women over a young man if you're forced by law to pay for any potential maternity leave or why hire someone with a disability over someone without one?

 

[DuskEngine]

A very blunt policy instrument that addresses a real problem. I believe better-targeted spending of public funds and more oversight to prevent malignant and racist practices like redlining would be more effective.

 

[Sailor_Jupiter]

A very blunt policy instrument that addresses a real problem. I believe better-targeted spending of public funds and more oversight to prevent malignant and racist practices like redlining would be more effective.

What is redlining?

 

[DuskEngine]

What is redlining?

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1050.html

Redlining is the practice of arbitrarily denying or limiting financial services to specific neighborhoods, generally because its residents are people of color or are poor. While discriminatory practices existed in the banking and insurance industries well before the 1930s, the New Deal's Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) instituted a redlining policy by developing color-coded maps of American cities that used racial criteria to categorize lending and insurance risks.

...

Like other forms of discrimination, redlining had pernicious and damaging effects. Without bank loans and insurance, redlined areas lacked the capital essential for investment and redevelopment. As a result, after World War II, suburban areas received preference for residential investment at the expense of poor and minority neighborhoods in cities like Chicago. The relative lack of investment in new housing, rehabilitation, and home improvement contributed significantly to the decline of older urban neighborhoods and compounded Chicago's decline in relation to its suburbs.

That page makes it sound like a purely historical thing, but the HUD Department reached a $200 million redlining settlement with Associated Bank just last year over its discriminatory lending practices in 2008-10.

I think affirmative action is a band-aid solution to problems of this sort.

 

[Sailor_Jupiter]

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1050.html



That page makes it sound like a purely historical thing, but the HUD Department reached a $200 million redlining settlement with Associated Bank just last year over its discriminatory lending practices in 2008-10.

I think affirmative action is a band-aid solution to problems of this sort.

I see, thank you.

 

[IwegalBadnik]

The problem (that I have) with affirmative action is a fundamental one to how it is approached. With affirmative action in place, color trumps capability in the relevant judgment. In defiance of the goals of equal treatment and fairness, an individual's race is given greater importance than their capabilities to perform the tasks set to them. This discrepancy has enabled individuals with poorer qualifications to overtake more qualified individuals despite the better performance of the latter, solely based on racial characteristics. Affirmative action is a very curious thing as it subtly does precisely the opposite of what it is sold as.

My thoughts regarding alternate ideas to affirmative action for policymakers (and particularly liberals) to consider: If you truly want to smooth over the road for certain people, don't stop there. Smooth it over for all of the people. Do not make race a sticking point. If you truly wish to bring about equality in the manner suggested, you must take race out of the equation from the outset and treat all of the individuals being dealt with as individual people and not mere members of rote groups. If you'd like to help a certain group by pushing education for them, fine--but do it for others too. The American education system needs more vigor instilled in it--but that can only stick if the commitment is made to it as a whole, not just a fraction of it.

 

[millais]

Maybe if they based it on what income bracket you fall into it would work better. Race based AA is a complete mess.

 

[Pickle Inspector]

Maybe if they based it on what income bracket you fall into it would work better. Race based AA is a complete mess.

I agree, I think a lot of resentment comes from when you see upper-middle class people from rich and well connected families take advantage of these systems.

 

[DuskEngine]

Maybe if they based it on what income bracket you fall into it would work better. Race based AA is a complete mess.

This sounds like a system that could be gamed though. Like I could get a law degree from Princeton, stock shelves for six months and then have a leg up on a new graduate applying for the same job.

If anything, it would be better to base it on the amount of wealth or assets that one currently has, but there are entire industries based around obscuring that already.

Of course you can claim to be 'black-identified' so it's not like the current system can't be gamed but I'm not sure if that sort of retardation is officially recognised in the same way.

I can't think of any implementation of affirmative action that wouldn't create perverse incentives, honestly. It's a necessary feature of a system that incentivizes disadvantage.

 

[AnOminous]

Maybe if they based it on what income bracket you fall into it would work better. Race based AA is a complete mess.

Purely race-based AA has generally not passed constitutional muster. Outright quotas, for instance, were about the first thing to be chucked (Bakke).

 

[CWCchange]

No, affirmative action is not good. From its intentions of helping impoverished African Americans receive opportunities for upward mobility, it has turned on itself to favor Afro-Caribbean and Hispanic foreigners. Furthermore, it came before the Civil Rights Act which protects against most discrimination anyway. Following it signed into law, AA policies should have been declared null and void.

 

[Internet War Criminal]

Treating people differently because of their skin color is racism, and racism is bad.

Also when you are giving preferential treatment to someone, someone who is more deserving is getting the shaft and at the end of the day everyone is paying the price for it

Treat everyone equally

 

[millais]

yes, is meritocracy too much to ask for?

 

[Internet War Criminal]

yes, is meritocracy too much to ask for?

Exactly. Each according to his ability, none according to their feels.

Either you can make it and do the job, or you can't. I don't give a shit if you're a woman, a man, black or white or whatever. If you're a woman and want to be a Navy SEAL well just do the training and qualify like anyone else. You're black and you want to be a doctor? Study and qualify like anyone else. You want to play in the NBA? Get surgery and grow 6" like everyone else.

 

[Ruin]

I think my favorite part of Affirmative Action is that its proponents seem to desire it only for high paying low effort white collar jobs. No one ever advocates for Affirmative Action for garbage men or coal miners. It's a sham propped up by the lazy, the talent less, and motivated by sheer jealousy.