Why Are Preferences Still Needed?

According to this report from Genesee County, Michigan, blacks (and the article implies all blacks) believe that it is necessary to continue judging and rewarding people by race because … whites continue to judge and reward people by race. On the other hand, whites (and here the article suggests only some whites) believe “It’s wrong. It’s just wrong” to judge people by race.

Part of this disconnect can be explained by disagreement over what equality requires, over how to tell whether or not discrimination is still rampant. “About 10 percent of UM-Flint’s students are black,” the article reports (University of Michigan at Flint).

That isn’t much different from the state average of 12 percent, but is far below the proportion of blacks in Flint and Genesee County. Flint has a majority black population.

“If the playing field was level, then blacks would be represented proportionately on college campuses and in all kinds of career fields,” said Gary Jones, 21, a UM-Flint senior. “Minorities are highly underrepresented in education – that’s obvious.”

In other words, both the journalist and the student seem to agree that “underrepresentation” proves continuing discrimination, which in turn justifies the continuation of racial preferences. That strikes me as a self-justifying definition.

But consider this: if the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative fails to gather enough signatures to get on the ballot next fall, or if it does get on the ballot and is defeated, that will be because a majority of whites favor continuing to grant racial preferences to blacks. But if that is the case, what sense does it make to say that blacks still need preferences because whites still discriminate against them?

But according to this logic, it will be argued in response, if MCRI passes won’t that prove that preferences are still needed? Two replies:

1. MCRI bans all discrimination based on race. It defies credulity to argue that a majority that comes together to ban racial discrimination wants to continue practicing racial discrimination.

2. In California and Washington, two states that have passed similar measures, the racial makeup of the students in the university systems has for all practical purposes returned to what it was before the bans on preferences were passed. Texas’s Top 10% plan succeeded in preserving diversity without the use of preferences.

Could it be that preferentialists are not satisfied with these results not because of the results themselves, but because they are insisting on a definition of equality, i.e., proportional representation, that the majority rejects every time it is given the opportunity? Preferentialists, it increasingly appears, demand a racial market closely regulated to guarantee proportional outcomes while those who oppose preferences believe in a free racial market governed only by strict rules of non-discrimination.