More Kaminer Komments – Wendy

More Kaminer Komments – Wendy Kaminer begins her American Prospect article, discussed in my immediately preceding post, by discussing the “profound difference” between affirmative action as a remedy for prior discrimination and as a tool for achieving diversity.

Envisioning racial preferences as purely remedial greatly limits their use: An institution that hasn’t discriminated against racial minorities in the past may not discriminate in favor of them in the present, and institutions that are guilty of prior discrimination may, in theory, only employ racial preferences remedially, until the prior offense is cured. But if racial preferences are justified in the name of diversity, they may be used by any institution, regardless of its history, and they may be used forever, to benefit any demographic group favored by institutional authorities. It’s not surprising that liberals generally promote affirmative action as a means of achieving diversity, whereas conservatives, if forced to accept affirmative action at all, would only allow it to be used remedially.

I think this distinction is often exaggerated. It seems to me that hiring (or admitting or giving some preference) based on race is a true remedy for past discrimination only when actual victims are involved, are “made whole” by correcting the past injustice done to them. But this is not generally what is meant by “remedial” affirmative action. As Ms. Kaminer, typically, states, organizations are often allowed (or even required) to give racial preferences once it is established that they had discriminated in the past, even though the present beneficiaries are not the past victims.

If this is remedial, precisely what does it remedy if not the absence of “diversity” in the present that presumably would exist but for the discrimination in the past?

Once again, it becomes clear that “diversity” (even when dressed in the garb of remedy) requires regarding minority individuals not as individuals but as fungible members of a group. Otherwise, how could hiring black Mr. Jones today be a remedy for failing to hire black Mr. Smith yesterday?

Say What?