What Is The Problem, I and II?

There are no better examples of Conventional (Liberal/Establishment/Whatever) Wisdom on racial preferences these days than Randy Cohen’s Ethicist column in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine and an editorial, “Diversity in Montgomery,” in today’s Washington Post. Since these two items are virtually identical in philosophy, values, sentiment, attitude, and even smugness, I decided to write about them in one post rather than two.

I. Shouting “Fire” In a Crowded, Multicult County

The WaPo’s edit is about the woeful lack of “diversity” in the Montgomery County (Maryland) fire department that has “raised so many eyebrows” and led the eyebrow monitors at the Post to demand “a closer look” at the department’s hiring procedures.

What is it about fire departments? Not long ago I discussed a similar controversy in Baltimore, where the fire chief declared the hiring process was “absolutely fair” and, confirming the topsy turvy logic of racial preference, that “the process will be changed immediately.”

Since 1990 Montgomery County has dropped from 77% white to 60% white, but 43 of the current crop of 46 fire dept. recruits are white. The question I believe this fact raises is, What is the problem here? Discrimination would certainly be a problem, and so I have no issue with the edit’s call for “a closer look.” Since apparently there is no discrimination, I would be inclined to declare this “underrepresentation” a non-problem and, as they used to say, move on.

Not so the Post. “Fire and rescue workers,” it writes, “as much as police, are the ubiquitous public face of any jurisdiction; they should bear some resemblance to the citizens they serve.” But only some resemblance: not tall/short, blond/redhead, old/young; only black/white/yellow/brown/red resemblance matters.

The WaPo and its preferentialist defenders would no doubt reply something like, “Ah, but your alternatives are only, as it were, skin deep. Our resemblance, by contrast, reflects deep cultural identity.” And thus do they reveal their assumption, first, that racial essentialism is real, i.e., that races really are different, and second, that race is the only thing that matters these days. There is no concern about under-or over-representation of Jewish firefighters, of born-again firefighters, of socialist or fascist firefighters, of gay (or straight) firefighters, of vegetarian firefighters. (There was a momentary but quickly forgotten concern that “just two women” were among the 46.)

The WaPo laments that the department was forced by its meanie lawyers to abandon its practice of “dividing applicants into ‘pools’ designated by race to give minority candidates an explicit edge in hiring.” (Presumably these “pools” are somehow not real pools; hence the quotes. And I assume we can assume that in the absence of “an explicit edge” in hiring minorities an implicit edge would do.)

It also laments that “[t]he department further undercut its own efforts to promote diversity by eliminating the lone recruiter from the payroll to save money.” The question of a recruiter may well be the nitty gritty where the rubber of racial preferences meets the road. The fire department obviously does not have a shortage of qualified applicants. Yet the WaPo demands that taxpayers support the considerable expense (salary, benefits, retirement, opportunity costs, etc.) of one (or more) recruiters in order to drum up applications from under-resembled groups. I believe that money could be spent better fighting discrimination, or even fires, than on social engineering to promote a more pleasing pigmentary diversity.

The WaPo is pleased, however, that the county has backed down and restored a full-time recruiter to the payroll, “an African American paramedic….” But wait a minute. Are all minorities fungible even though they don’t “resemble” each other? Why is this not a slap in the face of the Hispanic and Asian non-applicants?

It is also pleased that the county is re-evaluating its requirement that candidates have “experience as paramedics, as emergency medical technicians or in emergency communications” and that it also “is reevaluating the written test for recruits, with an eye to increasing the emphasis on non-cognitive factors such as common sense, judgment and conflict management abilities.” I’m sure Montgomery County residents will be as pleased as I would be to know that the people coming to rescue residents from burning houses are skilled in conflict management.

II. The Ethical Discriminator

Randy Cohen, the NYT resident ethicist, received the following query from a discriminator who wants to be ethical:

I work for an executive search firm whose clients increasingly request diverse slates of candidates in regard to sex and ethnicity, something our company supports. Our lawyers say it would be illegal for our company database to identify candidates’ ethnicity or sex. However, nobody would know if I kept my own list of outstanding diversity candidates. Would it be ethical to do so if my intent were to make sure that we do not omit diverse qualified candidates for a job search? Anonymous

As part of his reply, Cohen quotes a response he received from an EEOC Commissioner, Paul Steven Miller:

The search firm’s efforts to assemble a diverse database of candidates to meet its clients’ wishes for a heterogeneous pool of applicants are both laudable and legal. However, to segregate or classify candidates by virtue of their membership in a particular protected class, by race or sex, for instance, is another matter entirely.

Cohen writes that that his “head is spinning” from that response, and the substance of his advice to Anonymous confirms that indeed it was, and is. He writes:

It would be abhorrent to use such a list to exclude qualified candidates, but to use it to promote an egalitarian society is not just ethical but admirable: in ethics, intent counts.

Now my head is spinning. It would be “abhorrent” to use a segregated list to “exclude” any qualified candidate, but it is “admirable” to hire only from such a list if one’s purpose is to promote an egalitarian society? What exactly is it that is “abhorrent” about excluding someone because of race that is not equally “abhorrent” at, well, excluding someone else because of race?

Cohen generously recognizes that ” [t]here are certainly arguments against affirmative action programs, among them that categorizing people by race or sex reproduces the very discrimination such programs seek to counter,” but, he continues, “until more effective programs are put in place, affirmative action is the best — and most ethical — game in town.”

More “effective” at what? Certainly not at bringing about an end to racial discrimination. I guess I’m just not cut out to be an ethicist.

* * *

Both Ethical Cohen and the WaPedit remind me of a story I heard in college from a religion professor who had taught formerly at a prominent seminary. He told of a request that came in from a small Southern congregation seeking a new minister, preferably one who was not an integrationist. As the person in charge of placement, my professor friend wrote back that there were so few segregationists among his recent graduates that they were very much in demand and so commanded much higher salaries than their peers. The congregation, he reported, wrote back and said in that case they’d settle for a moderate.

So far major corporations, elite academic institutions, and the establishment media have not demonstrated the common sense of that small congregation. They are content to pay premium prices to continue discrimination.