Affirmative Action and its Relationship with Minorities

[Schaden Freude]

[IMG139]http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/10/10/wordcloud_stroke_custom-58edbc180a73901dfa78bd5b47eaf86fd0303913-s6-c30.jpg[/IMG139]

The words most commonly used when discussing 'Affirmative Action'​

A topic which was become more commonly discussed in universities in the Asia-Pacific region, affirmative action is commonly defined as "the policy of providing special opportunities for, and favoring members of, a disadvantaged group who suffer from discrimination".

Affirmative action often takes the form of quotas, whereby a set percentage of jobs or positions within institutions must be set aside for women or ethno-cultural minorities. However, affirmative action has also recently been implemented in some sectors for members of the LGBTQI community.

Firstly, before we can discuss this topic, we should frame it in the current context.

A 2014 Article on the topic:

Affirmative action refers to a set of public policies and initiatives designed to help alleviate the effects of discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Affirmative action policies also help women and minorities get into schools and places of employment in numbers proportionate to society’s demographics.

Affirmative action opponents often argue that policies attempting to level the playing field for minorities and women are “unfair,” and lead to preferential treatment and quotas. They also often use derogatory and misleading language like “reverse discrimination” and “white guilt” when describing affirmative action policies. The problem with arguing that affirmative action is “unfair” or that it only amounts to “reverse discrimination” is that it suggests that women and minorities would actually be treated equally if the policies were not in place. It also fails to acknowledge that the Supreme Court of the United States has declared preferences and quotas illegal, and has asked that affirmative action policies be continued only for as long as necessary to eradicate the effects of centuries of discrimination. In fact, the law only allows employers and schools to consider race and gender as part of the general hiring or admissions requirements.

Affirmative action is not about giving certain people an arbitrary advantage in the workplace or at school. Affirmative action policies attempt to make up for the negative effects of life-long obstacles, such as discrimination, lack of access to good educational opportunities, and generational poverty by leveling the playing field. Many people have the privilege of not being able to see or experience discrimination and argue that discrimination is no longer a real issue. This is called “color-blindness.” Colorblindness, overt racism, and targeted misinformation are the primary reasons why some people oppose affirmative action policies. Affirmative action policies help women and communities of color transcend systemic discrimination and create new life opportunities that would never have existed otherwise.

To address some common misconceptions about Affirmative Action off the gate:

It’s not a law. That’s right, it’s an “Initiative.” What does that mean? Well, it means that companies have the option. Not just companies but states. There are actually a couple of states that say that they “Do not recognize” Affirmative Action. Yes, there have been several “Executive Orders” signed by a few different Presidents but…that was about “Diversity.” Which was also an initiative not so much a law. Yes, there are actual laws about discrimination in the work place. As a matter of fact, when people talk about “Affirmative Action LAWS,” that is what they mean. If someone were to sue because they believed that they were not hired or not promoted based on being “Diverse” it would be called an Affirmative Action Lawsuit. Tricky isn’t it? The wording in the Affirmative Action Initiative is “The standard of compliance is good faith.” Seriously, that’s what it says.

You only need one. That’s right. The companies that do have some sort of “Diversity initiative” within their company only need one to be able to call themselves “Diverse.” Moreover, the “One” they need can come from a very interesting list and still be considered “Diverse.” You may have known that racial minorities, women and the disabled were on the list, right? How about Veterans. Did you know about them? Well, it’s true. If you have someone who has served in any branch of the military, they can be your “Diversity hire.” Ever wonder why the question “Have you ever served in the military” is on every job application? Now you know. What this means is that some universities choose to implement Affirmative Action for either women or ethnic minorities. Not both.

It doesn't give underqualified people a free pass to college/stops qualified people from getting into college. Now, if you are of the “Oppressed white male” population, you know that getting into school is super difficult for you, right? Except it’s not. Yes, it’s true, there are many schools that once held a certain amount of seats for racially diverse students. Problem with your complaining is the actual number! In 2003, a lawsuit went to the Supreme Court. Two separate students claimed that they did not receive admission to a Michigan college because they were white. Their lawsuits were largely spoken about in the media. Not surprisingly, it was about how white people weren’t getting into college because of their race but there wasn’t a lot of time spent on any of the outcome. Hmm…I wonder why. They lost. Both lost for the same reason. They weren’t qualified under the schools guidelines. Keep in mind, although this tuned into a big discussion about race, at this time, “Diversity” had a large umbrella of things outside of race. Here’s my favorite part, because of the ongoing outcry of white people claiming they were being discriminated against, a study was done to see how Affirmative Action in college actually affected white applicants. It turns out, it does. Before you get to happy, Mr. White Men are Oppressed, let me finish! The nationwide study proved that yes, it did affect white applicants. If there were no “Diversity Initiative,” white applicant’s acceptance would go from 25% to 26.5%. Rather negligible.

Now that those points have been addressed, let's get to the actual, substantive meat of this topic:

What are your thoughts on Affirmative Action? Should it encompass all of its current categories (gender, racial minorities, LGBT, disabilities, veterans), or should the definition be widened/narrowed? Furthermore, should Affirmative Action become compulsory under law for all companies and educational institutions, instead of just an 'initiative'?

 

[Aegiscalibur]

Concerning college admission, first we need to note that there are 3 separate issues:

1) Bias against certain groups in the admission process

2) People conforming to stereotypes related to the groups, which affects their own choices

3) Low opportunities for the poor, those lacking connections etc. to be accepted (technically also bias but not directly caused by being a member of the groups mentioned)



It is certainly possible to alleviate problem 1) with quotas. It's effectively outsourcing a part of the admission process to another party. The problem is that the correct size of the quota varies on a case-by-case basis, so setting universal quotas may lead to them being too high in some cases and too low in others. To be effective, the person determining the sizes of the quotas should be unbiased and have access to sufficient levels of information. Of course, it's unfeasible to have a different quota for every situation (it wouldn't be much of a quota then), but they should be specific enough to be meaningful.

But there is also another method. The admission process should be made more objective. Implement improved entrance exams and standardized matriculation exams (in the absence of a better term) because things like SATs and ACTs are insufficient. Be wary of basing acceptance on interviews, recommendations, or unrelated merits. This is about problem 3), but also make higher education cheaper and take measures to improve public education at all levels.

Now, if you are of the “Oppressed white male” population, you know that getting into school is super difficult for you, right? Except it’s not. Yes, it’s true, there are many schools that once held a certain amount of seats for racially diverse students. Problem with your complaining is the actual number!

Here’s my favorite part, because of the ongoing outcry of white people claiming they were being discriminated against, a study was done to see how Affirmative Action in college actually affected white applicants. It turns out, it does. Before you get to happy, Mr. White Men are Oppressed, let me finish! The nationwide study proved that yes, it did affect white applicants. If there were no “Diversity Initiative,” white applicant’s acceptance would go from 25% to 26.5%. Rather negligible.

If there is a fixed number of seats and a certain group gets a greater number of them than before, other groups will obviously have to settle for fewer. It's simple math.

It is more relevant to measure which percentage of whites should be accepted if the admission process was unbiased. If there are too many whites accepted because of bias, it is only natural that their number should go down. If there are too few, their number should go up.

After all, the target goal should be ensuring that the most qualified are accepted, not aiming to match overall demographics in every situation.

 

[TheFightingPikachu]

You only need one. That’s right. The companies that do have some sort of “Diversity initiative” within their company only need one to be able to call themselves “Diverse.” Moreover, the “One” they need can come from a very interesting list and still be considered “Diverse.” You may have known that racial minorities, women and the disabled were on the list, right? How about Veterans. Did you know about them? Well, it’s true. If you have someone who has served in any branch of the military, they can be your “Diversity hire.” Ever wonder why the question “Have you ever served in the military” is on every job application? Now you know. What this means is that some universities choose to implement Affirmative Action for either women or ethnic minorities. Not both.

You need only one what? It seems like you are saying that an institution needs only one person from a minority group to be considered diverse. I feel like I must be misunderstanding you, because that would make it practically useless.



Another issue I see is that these groups are not all facing the same sort of problems. One reason disabled people may have trouble finding a job is that some jobs may simply not be possible for them to do. Women do not have the same type of discrimination against them that black people do. And, in fact, the discrimination faced by one ethnic group is not always the same as the discrimination faced by another ethnic group. Discrimination against gays has never led to severe poverty for the gay community. And it is simply not true that veterans have experienced "centuries of discrimination."

As you've described affirmative action, I can't see it being even remotely effective in leveling the playing field.

 

[Blazekickblaziken]

After all, the target goal should be ensuring that the most qualified are accepted, not aiming to match overall demographics in every situation.

That's kinda the whole point though. Some people are only more qualified BECAUSE they had access to better opportunities or access to more resources. A child who goes to a state of the art school with lots of funding and small class sizes is obviously going to do better scholastically than a child who goes to an outdatedschool with large class sizes and inadequate funding. That second child's scholastic achievement does not necesarilly reflect their aptitude, but rather the quality of their education.

@thefightingpikachu

Uuuuummm... gay people have not faced severe poverty because of discrimination? I think that's a bit of an uninformed opinion.

 

[Zazie]

Here how I like to think about. There are people out there who don't want to hire people specifically because they are minorities. You could try to make this illegal, but it's very difficult to enforce. How are you supposed to prove that someone didn't hire a candidate because they are X minority rather than for other reasons?

It's hard to stop bigoted people from not hiring people because they are minorities. But with affirmative action you can kind of offset this by encouraging employers to hire minorities. So ideally there would not be a net loss in employment and/or advancement* opportunities.

It's obviously not the cleanest solution, since a lot of times the categories are arbtitrary** and don't nessecarily ensure the most at risk people in a minority are the ones geting the help. But it is doing something about the issue. There may be a better way of handling things that could be implemented instead. But in absence of that I would personally to prefer to have affirmative action over nothing.

*a lot of groups of people may not have difficulty in being employed but do tend to hit a glass ceiling, in the 70s some eastern and southern european descended people where not proportionally represented in higher positions

** like Afgahni people being considered white on the U.S. census, or how certain Asian groups may be better or worse off than others. (Like comparing Japanese to Cambodians)

 

[TheFightingPikachu]

@thefightingpikachu

Uuuuummm... gay people have not faced severe poverty because of discrimination? I think that's a bit of an uninformed opinion.

First, I'm not sure you got that I was not referring to individual gay people, but to the gay community as a whole. Second, I probably should have just said that it has never led to "severe poverty anything like that faced by the black community." Sorry for any confusion, but that one is definitely true, once again, when discussing communities rather than individuals.

 

[Schaden Freude]

You need only one what? It seems like you are saying that an institution needs only one person from a minority group to be considered diverse. I feel like I must be misunderstanding you, because that would make it practically useless.

Exactly. That's the point that I'm making: the current status quo is that most companies/educational institutions are allowed to call themselves "diverse" as long as they have AA for one or more categories. Under the current system, institutions don't need to have AA for women and African-Americans, for example. Only one is apparently fine, which is a rather prescriptive and narrow way of viewing discrimination, in my opinion. After all, the word "diverse" should be defined as being open to more than just one minority.

On Zazie's post, an important point is in there: how should we define AA? Are current definitions too expansive/too narrow? Is it possible to further quantify the criterion for Affirmative Action?

 

[The Federation]

Furthermore, should Affirmative Action become compulsory under law for all companies and educational institutions, instead of just an 'initiative'?

AA being a law would do more harm than good. Why pervert the fundamental freedoms of business owners by forcing them to accept and support more than one unqualified or under-qualified individual? That's as close to mandated welfare hand outs by the successful as you'll get.

As a country built on individual values, aid and general abettance for those without the tools necessary to perform to the quality necessitated by a given occupation is harmful to both the employer and the employee. Essentially, necessitating AA would be like affirming to underprivileged members of society that they will be accepted because they aren't qualified. As far as unqualified work goes, I would like to see an expansion in criterion and an explosion of the defining parameters. If we are going to have AA at all, why give companies the benefits if they have only hired, say, a single qualifying member.

Now, who wants to define who should be accepted and who shouldn't, because not all members of groups mentioned need AA in the slightest. Is the best way to determine who needs these resources really ascertained by assuming certain races/genders are inherently more disadvantaged? Why not looking at minimal school income, academic achievement of schools, and graduation rate and accept anyone who falls into those categories? If most meet the stereotypes, great. If there happens to be someone who doesn't, fine. Objective and sensible parameters are necessary.

 

[Aegiscalibur]

That's kinda the whole point though. Some people are only more qualified BECAUSE they had access to better opportunities or access to more resources. A child who goes to a state of the art school with lots of funding and small class sizes is obviously going to do better scholastically than a child who goes to an outdatedschool with large class sizes and inadequate funding. That second child's scholastic achievement does not necesarilly reflect their aptitude, but rather the quality of their education.

Did you read point 3)?

Concerning college admission, first we need to note that there are 3 separate issues:

1) Bias against certain groups in the admission process

2) People conforming to stereotypes related to the groups, which affects their own choices

3) Low opportunities for the poor, those lacking connections etc. to be accepted (technically also bias but not directly caused by being a member of the groups mentioned)

It is a problem, but it is by nature different than discrimination by other group status. If a person with a poor education is less qualified because of his poor education, a poorly educated person will be disadvantaged in this sense regardless of any other group status. He may also be disadvantaged in other ways, but they are separate matters. Don't confuse phenomena with different causal chains.

Concrete example:

Poor white person → Disadvantaged due to poverty
Poor black person → Disadvantaged due to poverty
Rich white person → Not disadvantaged due to poverty
Rich black person → Not disadvantaged due to poverty

Obviously, black people are poorer on average. Does this mean that we should give all black people greater welfare benefits than white people to combat it? No. It would be senseless to give great welfare benefits to black millionaires but give low welfare benefits to poor white people. Poverty itself is a better measure of the need for such benefits than race.

The same applies to education. We should distribute help according to actual need for help, not by less reliable measures.

If the discrimination is caused by being black itself, then race is a better measure than poverty, but it is a different phenomenon.

 

[Blazekickblaziken]

Poor white person → Disadvantaged due to poverty
Poor black person → Disadvantaged due to poverty and race
Rich white person → Not disadvantaged due to poverty
Rich black person → Not disadvantaged due to poverty but is disadvantaged due to race

Remember intersectionality? Minority statuses overlap and interact. I'm not entirely sure why you think that racism and classism are two completely independent things. Look at the whole problem with gentrification, poor minority communities are in disrepair until white people move in, then the physical community is bettered, without taking into consideration the poor human community that lives there and the poor people end up getting displaced because they can't afford to live there anymore.

Also, how do you expect black people to better themselves when people still discriminate over race, just much more subtly.

Also similar experiments have been done with male and female names providing predictable results.

Really you're against AA because you assume that it chooses unqualified minority students/employees over qualified white students/employees. I could just as easily argue that because of the established systems of discrimination qualified minority students/employees are getting passed over for unqualified white students/employees.

 

[Aegiscalibur]

Remember intersectionality? Minority statuses overlap and interact. I'm not entirely sure why you think that racism and classism are two completely independent things.

Yes, the world is a complex place and many things are affected by many other things. That is blatantly obvious; I never denied it.

What I want is to find out what exactly affects what. How do you do it? By dividing the system into its components and examining their interactions. Just saying, ”Things affect each other,” and not bothering to examine further is unproductive.

So answer. Which helps poor people more efficiently against discrimination by poverty? Helping poor people or helping black people?

Which helps black people more efficiently against discrimination by race? Helping black people or helping poor people?

The two are not mutually exclusive. I'm suggesting doing both, both aimed at the correct target group. A poor black person would be eligible for both. After all, a poor black person is both a poor person and a black person.

Look at the whole problem with gentrification, poor minority communities are in disrepair until white people move in, then the physical community is bettered, without taking into consideration the poor human community that lives there and the poor people end up getting displaced because they can't afford to live there anymore.

I am well aware of this fact. I never denied it.

Also, how do you expect black people to better themselves when people still discriminate over race, just much more subtly.

Also similar experiments have been done with male and female names providing predictable results.

Again, I am well aware of the fact that discrimination against black people and women exists. I never denied it. But they aren't about discrimination by wealth anymore.

Really you're against AA because you assume that it chooses unqualified minority students/employees over qualified white students/employees.

Did you actually read my first post? I said I'm not categorically against AA. You just need to use it right.

In the meantime, you are saying you would reserve a quota for black people to help fight against poverty in particular, even though rich black people would also be eligible for the quota. The most efficient way of helping against poverty is not helping rich black people as well. That's just absurd. You need to actually analyze the situation.

I could just as easily argue that because of the established systems of discrimination qualified minority students/employees are getting passed over for unqualified white students/employees.

That is a rather vague statement. Are you still talking about the poverty aspect, or the aspect of direct discrimination?



As a general note, your argumentation style of throwing tangentially related statements and articles at me kind of misses the point. Please provide precise, analytical argumentation that actually addresses my arguments because some of this is honestly too vague to be meaningful. And please try not to present my points as something they're not; you're basically strawmanning my stance.