the salt makers

Ethan and Hampton have brought up some excellent points that must be addressed.  But ultimately all of their arguments stem from a knowledge deficit of what affirmative action is supposed to be, what affirmative action is, and its real world implications.  I see I must compose a proper essay to address all of these issues.  But first some short answers:

To Hampton:
You're right, prima facia it appears as if you can end discrimination with discrimination just as you can end war with war.  But this demonstrates a misunderstanding for two completely different issues.  You cannot end racism with racism, welfare with welfare, or promiscuous gay culture with more promiscuous gay culture.  In short, conducting a war is not the same as conducting social policies!  In war you have a clearly defined enemy which you can incapacitate with artillery, weapons, etc.  Racism is intangible.  You can't point a gun at it and obliterate it.  It's as simple as that.

You have said that "affirmative action is most certainly not about ending discriminatory enrollment practices," but this is completely false.  This is true, but only in modern times.  It was by no means the intention of affirmative action.  But this will be addressed in the essay that follows. 

To Ethan:
You have said that "it seems to me that, quotas being illegal, all affirmative action does is prevent employers from not hiring qualified candidates on the basis of race, gender, class, or sexual orientation."  Once again, you are not familiar with the real world manifestations of affirmative action.  Hampton understands this by claiming that the purpose of affirmative action is create racial preferences for blacks.  But more on this in the essay.  Just because it's a university policy doesn't mean it must be argued "separately."  It's still affirmative action and it is still nocuous.  Furthermore, welfare and affirmative action can be conflated insofar that they are liberal race policies that do more harm than good.



Affirmative Action and Liberal Race Policies

"By cheering on counterproductive attitudes, making excuses for self-defeating behavior, and promoting the belief that 'racism' accounts for most of blacks' problems, white intellectuals serve their own psychic, ideological, and political interests. They are the kinds of friends who can do more harm than enemies."
- Thomas Sowell

A Short History

On June 4, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered a speech at Howard University, giving one of the earliest defenses of what is known today as affirmative action:

"But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please.You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates.This is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result."

This seemed to be the first mainstream argument for racial preferences to ameliorate past injustices, and while many in the civil rights community were thinking this, they refrained from articulating it as they knew they had just finished an arduous battle to impose race neutral policies.  IE. The Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Consequently, the leader, Martin Luther King Jr., would never have supported a policy such as affirmative action as illustrated by his famous speech:

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Indeed those who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 saw all too well what the actual manifestation of the policy would yield: racial preferences.  If you read the act it is blatantly obvious that there was no intention to impose racial preferences as the language is clear as day.

Clifford Alexander, former EEOC chairman said, "An affirmative action program has nothing to do with finding an unqualified black men or women.  It is about finding qualified black people who are there in abundance but who, either inadvertently or by choice, have been over-looked. 

Benjamin Hooks, former NAACP head said, "Affirmative action is simply an action taken to ensure or affirm equal opportunities for oppressed or previously disadvantaged groups.  What's wrong with that?"

Clearly, upon the advent of affirmative action came with it race neutral language.  The purpose was not to impose racial preferences for blacks because it was widely accepted in the civil rights community that the only reason blacks lagged behind whites in hiring practices and college admissions was because of discrimination.  If people could adopt affirmative action policies, which would successfully outlaw racial discrimination against blacks, then the playing field would become even.  "What's wrong" with this are the real world results of affirmative action.

After years of universities and companies adopting affirmative action policies, policies which only ensured equal opportunities between races, they found that their minority recruitment had increased only negligibly and sometimes none at all.  Thus began the era of modern affirmative action.

McGeorge Bundy wrote:  "The gaps in economic, educational and cultural advantage between racial minorities and the white majority are so wide that there is no racially neutral process of choice that will produce more than a handful of minority students in our competitive colleges and professional schools."

Peter Winograd, a law dean at New York University, went so far as to assert in 1969 that "the fact of the matter is that if you're color-blind, you don't admit minority groups."

Consequently, private and public institutions began a tradition of adjusting scores and lowering standards to increase their minority enrollment and representation.  Behind closed doors of course.  The reason is clear and I mentioned it earlier: Martin Luther King Jr. was rolling in his grave as his hard fought race neutral policies lived only a short time in American history.  Dinesh D'Souza poignantly posits that "Gradually, but indisputably , affirmative action metamorphosed from a project to recruit the best person for the job into a program to prefer minority applicants with weaker credentials over better qualified white applicants who are turned away.  The color-blind path became the road not taken."  Hampton even recognizes this, and obviously so do his peers, as those who advocate affirmative action today advocate racial preferences, not the historical affirmative action.

Proportional Representation
Ethan asks why anyone would be obligated to adopt affirmative action policies or hire less qualified candidates if quotas were illegal.  The answer: proportional representation.

In 1977 the governments and courts decided just how much racial preferences were warranted.  Here is how the supreme court defined the concept:

"It is ordinarily to be expect that nondiscriminatory hiring practices will in time result in a work force more or less representative of the racial and ethnic composition of the population in the community from which the employees are hired."

The argument has been made that this decision by no means mandates quotas, so it means nothing.  Unfortunately, this is not so.  Proportional representation became the dogma of multi-culturalists:  if all cultures are equal, then all groups are equal.  Given this, any discrepancy in minority representation must be a result of racial discrimination. 

As D'Souza points out, "In 1971 the Supreme Court devised an ingenious legalistic mechanism to enforce proportional representation.  The court ruled that companies are liable for illegal discrimination, regardless of their intentions, if the effect of their hiring and promotion standards is to advance a disproportionately small number of racial minorities.  Griggs V. Duke Power held that merit standards that produced such a "disparate impact" could only be justified if the company could prove that those standards bore a "demonstrable relationship" to performance and were required by "business necessity."

Prima facia, this seems like a reasonable request.  Companies can only have requirements which ensure good job performance.  Yet, the precise relationship between standards and actual performance is often quite difficult to demonstrate.  By making this connection very difficult to document, courts have succeeded in making virtually all companies vulnerable to a finding of illegal discrimination.  For example, a supermarket may require their employees possess a high school degree, a bank may require no criminal background and a police department may require the passing of a standardized test.  How can these companies prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these requirements are necessary to perform said jobs?  It's impossible!  It could easily be argued that criminals can be rehabilitated, you don't need a degree to run a register and you don't need to speak correctly to shoot people!

Barbara Lerner, a psychologist and expert on job testing, notes that the government and courts took advantage of these problems.  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) insisted that tests used for hiring purposes be "validated" by professionals.  Furthermore, these government agencies not only required companies to prove their hiring requirements were necessary, but also that no alternative measures existed that would get the job done while getting more blacks and other minorities hired.

As D'souza notes, "In some cases, the government sued companies that used such hiring standards as requiring employees to have a high school diploma or not have a criminal record.  These standards were impermissible, the government declared, because blacks are less likely to graduate from school and more likely to be convicted of a crime than whites."

To no surprise, by the late 1970's racial preferences were a way of doing business in both the government and private sector.

In summary, if your town is 50% black, you should have 50% black employees, otherwise you're discriminating.  There is no other explanation.  The institution has two options:  they can settle or face the courts.  Either way they end up paying expensive damage awards or establishing preferential hiring programs to remedy their "indiscretions."

Furthermore, the EEOC uses an 80% rule to enforce proportional representation:  companies whose minority recruits are less than four-fifths of the ratio of each group in the population are automatically presumed to be discriminating.  Just look up the 1989 Uniform Guidelines put out by the EEOC.

Facts to support my position:
"Starting in the late 1960's civil rights activists in the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) used their leverage over government contractors to force them to adopt "goals and timetables" for minority hiring.  These early forms of racial preferences had nothing to do with proven cases of discrimination.  Rather, they were simply a condition for doing business with the federal government.

In 1972, when it gained the legal power to sue private employers, the EEOC began its aggressive campaign of threats and lawsuits aimed at coercing companies to hire minorities on a merit bases if possible, preferentially if necessary.  The EEOC targeted virtually every major company - including AT&T, General Motors, and General Electric - and, using the threat of lawsuits alleging racial discrimination, negotiated consent decrees typically mandating millions of dollars in back pay, settlement costs, as well as the implementation of minority hiring programs.  "Once we get the big boys," declared EEOC Chairman John Powell, "the others will soon fall in line."

The EEOC's technique for enforcing racial preferences against whites and in favor of minorities typically begins with a filed grievance by an individual alleging discrimination.  But instead of simply seeking to resolve the particular dispute with the employer, the EEOC uses the complaint to investigate the employer's overall minority hiring data.  If it finds evidence of minority under representation, the EEOC applies legal pressure, threatening a class action law suit, and seeking to force the employer to agree to a package of compensatory payments as well as enforceable minority hiring for the future.

Many companies find it less onerous to pay damages and change their hiring practices rather than risk a damaging verdict.

There is now in place a massive bureaucracy to enforce these policies which are mandated by the ideology of proportional representation.  All companies with more than fifty employees and $50,000 in federal contracts are subject to OFCCP's racial preference rules.  The OFCCP monitors about 400,000 companies that do business with the federal government.  Each year it conducts thousands of "compliance reviews" and extracts monetary concessions and hiring agreements. 

Similarly, the EEOC has gone from a staff of a few dozen to its current size of nearly three thousand full-time employees, including several hundred attorneys.  All firms with more than fifteen employees or more must file annual reports delineating progress in minority recruitment.  More than 85% of the private sector work force falls under EEOC regulations.  Each year thousands of cases are filed in federal court with EEOC clearance, and an equal number are resolved through strong-arm negotiation.  Then there are the civil rights divisions in the departments of justice and education, as well as numerous affirmative action sections in virtually every government department and agency.

While the recent Adarand Constructors v. Pena decision imposes tougher conditions for their use, the Supreme Court has proven itself to be malleable to the logic of racial preferences.  The Court has ruled that such preferences do not violate the seemingly explicit anti-discrimination language of the 14th amendment to the constitution or the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  (Wow)

Yet private companies too have proved generally invertebrate in resisting government pressures.  One reason is that they do not with to enter into expensive and long-lasting litigation, often with its attendant bad publicity."

Real World Examples
In support of affirmative action, the Clinton administration planned to fill its position for a senior State Department post by rejecting all white male candidates and insist it go to a minority.  "It's one thing to seek diversity," Richard Cohen from the Washington Post reported, "and quite another to reject a qualified individual on account of race or sex."

So, hopefully the origins of affirmative action, what it has turned into, and its real world implications have been established.  We can all agree that any solution the the dysfunctional black culture must be multi-faceted.  Certainly both Hampton and Ethan have argued this.  The problem you both have is encompassed perfectly by Hampton saying that those who support affirmative action are "starting to turn him around" while in the next paragraph stating that "we can't win the battle against poisonous cultures as long as affirmative action and social welfare programs exist."  Does it make any sense that you want to use a program that impedes cultural evolution to spark cultural evolution?  The solution must be multi-faceted and come from within the black community, not externally or by government mandates.  There is but one more issue to address.

How Affirmative Action Hurts Blacks and Everyone Else: A Laundry List
1.  There is a widespread suspicion that blacks are an inferior race biologically.  This is evidenced by polemical books such as "The Bell Curve."  A book, mind you, that has found a difficult time being refuted.  Affirmative action, rather than dispelling this myth, enforces it.  Such a policy sends a message to both blacks and others that this group is incapable of succeeding on their own, so we must help them.  You could see racial preferences as a sort of Special Olympics for blacks.  They only serve to devalue black achievements.

For some anecdotal evidence, when Kathryn's father was attending LSU Medical School his instructors held special "study" sessions for the black students only.  It consisted of the professors teaching them off of the tests they would be taking the next week.  That sends no other message than you are not smart enough to perform well on this test, so let me give you the grade.  Does that seem like it's going to solve their problems or reinforce them?  Furthermore, do you think these doctor's were very successful or very knowledgeable?  Not having to work for their degree?  Basically just being handed to them?  All this does is produce sub-par black doctors that the rest of the nation can stereotype by.  It hurts way more than it helps.

2.  Such a policy puts every black achievement in a light of suspicion:  did they actually achieve their status at this Ivy league school or were they simply put here to fulfill a diversity goal?  This is nocuous to both the students who benefit from the policy by shedding their own accomplishments in a light of suspicion and those individuals who were unjustly denied the seat.  Not to mention the contempt with which students may approach the possibly undeserving student. 

Sure, you could argue that those who got in due to their daddy's connections would also be suspect, but they aren't wearing a huge sign that says "I may have gotten in for reasons other than merit."  With policies like affirmative action in place, every man with black skin is wearing that exact sign.

3.  Dennis Prager argues that one "way in which race-based affirmative action injures blacks is that it perpetuates the racist myth that race is significant. The notion that racial diversity is important is itself based on this racist idea. It confuses cultural diversity – a great asset to a university – with racial diversity. It tells the black student that the rest of us regard him first and foremost as black. Yet, no white or Asian student thinks of himself this way, or is seen this way by others. Yet universities chisel this racist absurdity into students' hearts, minds and souls. Thanks to liberals, it will take yet another generation to identify people by their achievements and personalities rather than by their color.

Furthermore, it discourages self-reliance and hard work. If you knew that wherever you went in life, you would be given special consideration because of your ethnicity or color, would you work as hard? Of course not. Affirmative action is race-based welfare."

4.  It would be hard to argue that black culture is not, by-in-large, dysfunctional.  High crime rates, broken families, and illegitimacy are all rampant.  I find this evidence much more convincing for their poor performance than the contention that they are autochthonously inferior to whites.  But to fix this we must address the cultural breakdown, not create liberal race policies which do nothing more than create a blame-shift.  By enacting this policy it is as if we are saying, "it is not a cultural problem that must be addressed.  It is a racism and discrimination problem."  This is also why I don't subscribe to the belief that slavery has caused the immiserated state of black culture.  Not only do I think it's just not true, but it also plays into the blame-shift.  Their problems aren't their own, they are white people.  But that's for another debate, one which I will get to shortly, just for Christiaan.

5.  By admitting mediocre black students into top tier schools you are simply setting them up for failure.  A recent study has shown that racial preferences in top law schools were causing high black drop out rates and those that did graduate were more than likely to be at the bottom of their class.  It also noted that had the top tier schools not accepted them for racial reasons they would have likely been accepted by a less prestigous school and performed better because the school was more appropriate for their preparation level.
http://www.adversity.net/Sander/RHS_main_frame.htm

It would not be a stretch to apply the lawschool statistics and conclusions across the academic boards.

6.  Because this nocuous policy ends up forcing companies to hire less qualified candidates, the detrimental effect on both a company's performance and the economy leads to many new companies choosing to move to states with few black residents.  This is harmful to any state that would otherwise be a good candidate for a company's base and it also helps perpetuate black unemployment.  It simply creates a vicious cycle.

7.  Those qualified individuals who are passed over for less qualified candidates are more likely to act towards these minorities with contempt.  A survey by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith supports these findings:  "Reverse discrimination victims are more apt to hold anti-black beliefs."  It helps perpetuate racism.

8.  As D'Souza points out, "Companies that are legally or politically compelled to hire minorities are unlikely to place them in positions of serious responsibility: consequently racial preferences have inspired countless shop-window positions such as assistant director for human relations, liaison for minority development, coordinator for community affairs, consultant for interpersonal services, diversity officer, and so on.  Furthermore, then companies reorganize or downsize, executives are under economic pressure to cut back on generally unproductive divisions which have been created to preserve and display affirmative action employees."

9.  To quote Hampton:
"Meanwhile, the thing that worries me most about affirmative action is that it is "rewarding bad behavior." Preferred minorities (black people, Mexicans) perform worse, so they receive benefits. If their communities do not improve, they receive more handouts. That sort of cycle keeps them impoverished.

The second thing is that affirmative action can be used pretty irresponsibly. At Columbia, I think that the auto-accept GPA for black people was a 2.5, and the auto-reject GPA for white people and asians was a 3.5. It was something ridiculous like that. In the last enrollment group at UM (fall 2006), a black student with the median GPA was 43 times more likely to be admitted than a white student with the median GPA.

Also, "The programs enforce a sense of entitlement, and they make minorities believe that they  need AA to get into college, get a job, etc.  It lowers standards and expectations."

Meanwhile, affirmative action is amazingly unfair to the unprivelaged minorities (asians, indians). If you are a chinese girl from an impoverished area, you need to score way higher than your peers."

Conclusion and More
But Zach, you haven't mentioned why school admissions enact affirmative action policies if they aren't intimidated by the government like private companies.  Good point.  I don't know exactly why they do this, but I can make some suggestions.  The first reason is that most colleges seem to think that possessing a diverse student body makes them more appealing to prospective students.   I don't know how true this is, but it is certainly reasonable.  Secondly, a prestigous school that does not have racial preferences is likely to suffer the same consequences as a recent New York law firm.  Either way, the reasons for why AA is harmful still apply.

Thomas Sowell posits, "If black attorneys are not elevated to partnerships in law firms in proportion to their numbers, then to the New York Times this shows, in the words of their front page headline:  "Law Firms are Slow in Promoting Minority Lawyers to Partner Role."  Apparantly there can only be external reasons for anything negative that happens to blacks."

It all comes back in a circle as this is also a huge reason why many companies comply with the proportional representation fallacy: to prevent bad publicity.  And remember that it is not only the government who can persuade companies to comply with racial preferences to avoid bad publicity.  Do you remember the Denny's incident?  After a few complaints of racial discrimination by patrons the NAACP  put a political gun to Denny's head.  They agreed to increase their number of minority franchises by more than 50 by 1997, a minimum of 12 percent of food and supply purchases (does that percentage sound familiar anyone?) to black-owned businesses by the year 2000, and preferential hiring for black managers and workers.  They also made a $68,000 dollar contribution to the NAACP.  But it gets better!  The Justice Department decided to file a class action suit against Denny's, inviting blacks from all across the country to "admit" past discrimination.  Some four thousand complaints surfaced and Denny's ended up dishing out $54 million dollars to settle the cases.

As D'Souza notes, "If politicians refuse to work with the NAACP, the "black community" is said to be outraged.  The risk of incurring charges of bigotry makes it difficult for specious claims to political representation to be challenged by outsiders."

I hope that all of your issues have been addressed.  I don't really understand why these multi-faceted arguments are "turning you around" Hampton.  I don't think you would ever have argued otherwise.  I agree, but affirmative action should not be a part of that plan.  It's actually a little amusing how you guys keep saying that you agree with each other, like I don't agree with you on the multi-faceted argument. 

I agree that we should help minorities, but affirmative action is not the way to go. 

Hampton:
"That's true, but is it really fair to expect black people to compete both against us and their own environment?"

Actually Hampton, yes it is fair.  Because I subscribe to the belief that black culture is not largely the result of slavery or white racism the blame falls primarily, though not completely, upon the black community.  Since they are responsible for perpetuating their oppositional and destructive culture, YES, I DO expect them to change it and compete on an equal level.  Don't pretend like African Americans are the only minority who have had to fight against prejudices, poverty, and slavery.  They do, however, seem to be the only one's still blaming most of their problems on them.  For that I hold no one but them responsible.

Hampton:
"Affirmative action does not select for the people who disrespect education; it selects those who seize the opportunity.  I need to look up AA hiring and enrollment statistics, but my sense is that schools and businesses select only the best students from poor black areas."

I'm actually not even sure what this means.  How exactly do they "seize the opportunity?"  By filling out a college application?  That's hardcore.  And I'm quite sure that they only select the best students from poor black areas, but I fail to see the implications of this argument.  Or it's relavency.  I also don't see how it justifies a broken system.

Hampton:
"AA is about helping the racial blocks that need help."

Maybe, but the results are far from the intended.

Personally, I like the argument that if the KKK were to try and oppress blacks, they couldn't do a better job than creating a policy such as affirmative action because all the policy really does is hinder progress.  These arguments are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to liberal race policies and I firmly suggest you guys do your own research on these matters.  It is important to note, however, that liberals do intend well. 

And just for fun I'm going to include my previous email as you guys didn't really address its arguments.  It's a little redundant, but deal with it:

"I was talking with Ethan the other day about affirmative action and he tells me that he has no problem with it.  He brought up some excellent anecdotal evidence:  his father works at LSUE and is a professor there.  The only role affirmative action plays in his hiring processes is he is not allowed to discriminate against blacks or minorities.  He always hires the most qualified.

This, I'm sure, happens quite often, but it would be obvious to also say that clearly affirmative action is not necessary in your father's case.  He would still hire the best candidate.  Who wouldn't if they truly cared about their company or school?  

But that is besides the point.  That enactment of affirmative action is the general idea behind it, which I think is good.  While I think that every day it is losing it's relevancy in our society, it can be said that ensuring that only the highest qualified candidate is hired is a good thing.  But unfortunately, that's not how it come out in practice.

Immediately after the introduction of affirmative action there was virtually not increase in minority college or job  recruits.  This was not because, as many liberals would posit, that they were still discriminating.  It was because there simply weren't as many qualified black people as there were whites and Asians.  This led to the modern affirmative action: racial preferences.  They began lowering the standards and hiring less qualified minorities to fulfill their "goals," not "quotas" so that it looked like they weren't discriminating. (Like there's a fucking difference anyway, right?)  For what other reason could there be no increase in minority recruits once it becomes illegal to discriminate?  To admit it is the applicants fault would be to admit cultural inferiority.  You can't do that if you're a multiculturalist.

Needless to say, I'm sure the courts and the ACLU don't have their eye on Ethan's dad at LSUE.  They've got bigger fish to fry.

So, where does this leave us?  I mean, quotas are illegal, right?  So what does this even matter?

The answer: proportional representation.

In 1977 the governments and courts decided just how much racial preferences were warranted.  Here is how the supreme court defined the concept in a 1977 decision:

"It is ordinarily to be expect that nondiscriminatory hiring practices will in time result in a work force more or less representative of the racial and ethnic composition of the population in the community from which the employees are hired."

Here you have the legal and courtly justification for affirmative action and "goals."  If your town is 50% black, you should have 50% black employees, otherwise you're discriminating.  Does that sound legit to you, knowing black high school drop out rates and illegitimacy?  And here is where ACLU steps in.  If you are not proportional, you become a racist organization threatened with a lawsuit.  Why not just hire some underqualified applicants to keep it under wraps, eh?"

I look forward to real discussion on this issue.

Zach