Affirmative action

Affirmative action (U.S. English), or positive discrimination (British English), is a policy or a program providing access to systems for people of a minority group who have traditionally been discriminated against, with the aim of creating a more egalitarian society. This consists of access to education, employment, health care, or social welfare.

Criticism

Demeaning racialism

Opponents of affirmative action regard it as government-sanctioned racial discrimination, and also believe that it?s demeaning to members of minority groups, that affirmative action wrongly sends a condecending message to minorities that they are not capable enough to be considered on their own merits.

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Quotas

Critics often object to the use of racial quotas and gender quotas in affirmative action. Quotas are illegal in the United States, except when a judge issues an order for a specific institution to make up for extreme past discrimination. There is dispute over whether this de jure illegality prevents de facto quotas. Much time has been spent attempting to show that these "goals" are not quotas.

Related Topics:
Racial quota - Gender quota - Quotas

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Cultural differences

Some view the disproportionate percentages of different races in instutition of higher education or certain professions as a reflection of minority cultures having varying emphasis on education. Some proponents of this view believe African-Americans, Hispanic Americans and other often underrepresented minority communities do not emphasize education and high academic achievement as much as whites or Asians or "Model Minorites". Proponents of this view will often further criticize hip hop culture, "victim mentality", militant afrocentricity, anti-establishment mentality, high family instability, and excessive economic materialism or consumerism as being among the cultural factors that have prevented blacks from achieving the same economic opportunity as whites. Thus, proponents believe that the minority community, not the government, should be responsible for eliminating any economic disparity between the races.

Related Topics:
"Model Minorites" - Hip hop - Economic materialism - Consumerism

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Some proponents of this view often believe that it is primarily cultural differences, not just socioeconomic problems, that is the root of economic disparity between races. Supporting this view is not mutually exclusive to supporting affirmative action. Nonetheless, most supporters of this view believe that affirmative action policies or government intervention cannot solve the economic and educational disparity between the races. Social and fiscal conservatives most likely advocate this point of view.

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TV talk show host Bill O'Reilly, who is white and labels himself a "traditionalist", is the one of the biggest commentators known for criticizing hip hop music for promoting the "gangster" lifestyle, misogynist behavior, and poor grammatical skills in inner city or black communities. He has often criticized several rappers by name, including Ludacris and Cam'ron, for using profane and explicit lyrics in their music, which he believes heavily contributes to juvenile delinquency in black communities.

Related Topics:
Bill O'Reilly - Ludacris - Cam'ron

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In 2004, African-American comedian Bill Cosby publicly criticized the black community for having low standards in regards to tolerating high illiteracy, high rate of single fatherless parent households, high crime rate, and emphasizing excessive consumerism. He has repeatedly called upon inner-city African-Americans to develop a culture that celebrates academic achievement and not juvenile deliquency or economic materialism (such as placing more value on clothing than getting a proper education). However, there is nothing to suggest that he in fact opposes affirmative action and this view is not mutually exclusive to supporting affirmative action. Nonetheless, conservatives and affirmative action opponents have used Cosby's message in order to introduce or further expand their message, especially towards those in the black community.

Related Topics:
2004 - Bill Cosby - Criticized - Consumerism

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However, many supporters of affirmative action and critics of this view charge that those proponents are being ethnocentric and are disingenously trying to deflect or downplay the role of past and current institutional discrimination of minorities. These critics believe that these proponents are trying to shift the blame onto the victim who was discriminated in the first place in order to justify rolling back government civil rights policies. Most of these critics believe eradicating affirmative action will further deepen economic disparity between whites and underrepresented minorities. Furthermore, many critics believe that those proponents are being naive, hypocritical, or vague in their quest to 'change the cultural values' of the black community.

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Biological Differences

Some critics of affirmative action believe that the demographic differences might have a biological influence. Examples include hormonal and neural differences between men and women, and possible biological differences between groups, such as Asian-Americans and African-Americans). (See Race and intelligence)

Related Topics:
Asian-Americans - African-American - Race and intelligence

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Certain supporters of this view believe some races are on average smarter than others races due to genetic and biological differences. Some of these proponents point to controversial and disputed studies that claim that whites and Asians on average have higher IQs than blacks (mostly disputed not on the grounds that the studies are inaccurate, but rather that IQ itself may be a poor measure of intellectual ability). Many supporters believe the physical characteristics inherent in certain races contribute to varying levels of intelligence and mental capacity of the race; however, this view is heavily disputed and is a minority postion among psychologists.

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Over the decades, the view of biological differences has gradually decreased in popularity in the scientific community. One reason being that the concept of "race" is highly disputed and disregarded to having any relevance in scientific or taxonomic terms. Other critics of this view point to IQ tests comparing whites and blacks as often being ethnocentric and biased (arguments against this view include studies of adopted black children and their IQ, as well as the failure of attempts at making culturally-neutral IQ tests work). Other critics point to studies showing black children who are adopted and raised by white, affluent parents and attend predominantly white schools tend to perform as well on academic achievement tests as their white classmates. Critics of this view in general believe proponents try too hard to dismiss environmental, social, and even cultural factors in the economic disparity between demographics. Another criticism put forward against this view is the theory of "sterotype threat".

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Disadvantaging working-class non-minorities

Another criticism of affirmative action in employment and education claims that these programs encourage socioeconomic discrimination in favor of middle-class members of minority groups over better qualified but working-class members from the majority group, since such programs do not consider socioeconomic class. In essence, middle-class minorities with greater opportunities and resources at their disposal are favoured over members of the working poor who happen not to be minorities (usually, poor whites). This criticism, which comes mainly from the left, believes this is contrary to claims of "social justice" made by supporters.

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Shifting justification

Affirmative action in the United States was originally conceived as a means to compensate African Americans for centuries of slavery, as newly granted legal equality was considered insufficient to redress African American grievances. However, the inititative quickly ballooned to encompass various other racial minorities that had never suffered from slavery. In addition, newly immigrated Africans without any enslaved ancestors benefit as well. Thus the original justification, which the potential victims of affirmative action were intitially compelled to accept, has been abandoned.

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Criticism by Dutch Martin

Dutch Martin, an African-American, claims that the following are problems with affirmative action, based on his reviewhttp://www.townhall.com/bookclub/sowell4.html of ' (ISBN 0-30010-199-6, 2004) by African-American economist Dr. Thomas Sowell:

Related Topics:
Dutch Martin - Thomas Sowell

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• They encourage non-preferred groups to designate themselves as members of preferred groups to take advantage of group preference policies;
• They tend to benefit primarily the most fortunate among the preferred group (e.g. black millionaires), oftentimes to the detriment of the least fortunate among the non-preferred groups (e.g. poor whites);
• They reduce the incentives of both the preferred and non-preferred to perform at their best — the former because doing so is unnecessary and the latter because it can prove futile — thereby resulting in net losses for society as a whole; and
• They engender animosity toward preferred groups as well as on the part of preferred groups themselves, whose main problem in some cases has been their own inadequacy combined with their resentment of non-preferred groups who — without preferences — consistently outperform them.

Sowell also argued:http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20030108.shtml

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:What about the notion that affirmative action has helped blacks rise out of poverty? The black poverty rate was cut in half before affirmative action — and has barely changed since then.

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:What about the notion that blacks would not be able to get into colleges and universities without affirmative action? After group preferences and quotas were banned in California's state universities, the number of black students in the University of California system has risen.

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:"Minority students are systematically mismatched with institutions" due to racial preferences, where they underperform relative to the student body. Had they gone to an institution without the help of affirmative action, to a less selective school, they would have received better grades and graduated at higher rates.

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:"When the top-level schools recruit black students who would normally be qualified to succeed at the level next to the top, then the second tier of institutions faces the prospect of either being conspicuously lacking in minority students or (2) dipping down to the next level below to bring in enough minority students for a statistically respectable "representation." Usually they end up mismatching students. Once begun at the top, this process continues on down the line."

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http://www.leaderu.com/alumni/sowell-choosing/chpter07.html#black

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Counter-arguments

Proponents of Affirmative Action respond that such discrepancies are a result of residential segregation and disparate funding of school systems; in response, critics of affirmative action concede that those problems are valid issues which urgently require a solution, but argue that qualified members of the majority group should not be deprived of access to opportunities just because the larger society is unable to fix problems affecting its minority groups.

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Many arguments against affirmative action don't seem to consider the fact that until the 1960s, admission to many state universities were essentially white only, even outside of the deep south.

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For example, in the early 1960s, the minimum qualification for admission to the University of California, Berkeley, when it was primarily a white institution, was approximately a C+. The least qualified minority applicant to California-Berkeley in recent years would have needed an A+ average (4.0+ on a 5.0 system) just to be considered. One vocal proponent of affirmative action was Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who was denied entry to the University of Maryland Law School on account of his race, and instead had to attend Howard University Law School in Washington D.C.

Related Topics:
University of California, Berkeley - Thurgood Marshall - University of Maryland - Howard University

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Another argument is that many of the state and city universities had much lower tuition during the time they were primarily for whites, while tuition at such institutions have grown faster than the rate of inflation now that more minorities are attending. Tuition at the City College of New York was free up until the 1960s when the students were primarily Italian and Jewish, but now rival those of state universities now that most of the students are Black or Hispanic. In fact, however, until the 1960s the City College only accepted students with a 90 average, whereas now it accepts people with a 60 average. Furthermore, this college's alumni produced a record (for public colleges) eight Nobel laureates, all Ashkenazi Jews.http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/iq.htm A qualified minority with 90 average and a good SAT can qualify for honors college. One example is Colin Powell. For example, had Thurgood Marshall been admitted to Maryland, as a resident of Baltimore he would not have had to pay tuition. Howard, a private institution, had substantial tuition fees, but was at the time (the 1930s) the only ABA-accredited law program at a historically Black university.

Related Topics:
Tuition - City College of New York - Nobel - Ashkenazi Jews - Colin Powell - Thurgood Marshall

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Other supporters of affirmative action argue that it benefits society as a whole. Given that affirmative action is effective, they argue, creating a diverse culture increases the quality of the society. This is widely argued in the realm of education. An example of support for this is a study done by Patricia Gurin, who is part of the American Psychological Association. Gurin found that students who are from a more diverse educational setting had better results in tests designed to measure complex thinking, were more motivated to understand other people?s points of view, were more understanding of differences in cultural environments, and were more confident in their intellectual ability.

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Libertarian view

Free market libertarians believe any form of unjustified discrimination is likely to lead to inefficiencies, and that a rational person would therefore be unlikely to seek to discriminate one way or another and should therefore be free to decide who to select. Therefore, libertarians generally do not advocate anti-discrimination laws, as they reportedly distort the situation. They believe that inefficient, overregulated, noncompetitive industries enable unjustified discrimination, as said industries need not compete and hire on credentials relevant to the job. This was often the case with union membership, as unions were and are predicated upon rationing relatively high paying jobs to a large pool.

Related Topics:
Free market - Libertarian - Rational

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In terms of policy, libertarians favor repealing all affirmative action legislation and regulation, so that the government has no official stance on the practice, leaving the decision to uphold and maintain such a policy up to the individual institutions. Some, however, may still take issue as taxpayers' money will support institutions that support or oppose affirmative action in the case of colleges and universities, meaning colleges, and not the government, should fund any costs of discrimination at their own expense. Libertarians generally disdain using taxpayers' money for programs that any citizen may oppose, like stem cell research. Instead, the optimal solution, according to them, lies in abolishing all federal aid to colleges and universities.

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