“Misconception Of Affirmative Action”?

An editorial in the [Michigan] State News purports to expose “misconception[s] of affirmative action.” What it succeeds in doing is exposing the misconceptions of its supporters.

Here’s an example:

For one, affirmative action policies are not permission to treat citizens differentially on the basis of race; they are permission to take race into consideration in hiring and application practices. Affirmative action allows employers to provide equal opportunity for qualified individuals.

This means that when two candidates of equal merit are applying for the same job, the employer might choose to hire a person of minority status with the understanding that diversity is of a compelling interest to his or her company.

Let’s leave aside all those instances where candidates are “of equal merit,” assuming for the sake of argument there are actually many instances of this to leave aside. What about when, by whatever standards are being employed, candidates are not “of equal merit,” such as when one candidate for admission has grades and test scores that are substantially higher than another’s? (That, to repeat a point it seems necessary to repeat, doesn’t mean the second candidate is unqualified, but it does mean, most of the time, less qualified.)

In that situation, which is clearly much more common than candidates being “of equal merit,” if affirmative action does not mean treating people “differentially on the basis of race” it doesn’t mean anything at all, and doing away with it would have no effect.

Show me an affirmative action program that does no more than “take race into consideration.” All that I know of take action based on that consideration, which is to say “treat citizens differentially on the basis of race.”

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  1. Gina March 28, 2006 at 9:28 pm | | Reply

    That “equal merit” line is an old argument. It’s what universities used to say before they had to release their admissions data: “oh, we only use it as a tie breaker”. Then the GPA scores and SAT scores were released and over time it became “minority enrollment will plummet” and the “tie breaker” bit was dropped. I guess it’s hoped those numbers were forgotten.

    The only thing related to the “tie breaker” line I’ve heard recently was that affirmative action looks at race in the “borderline range”, and that because there are many more whites than blacks in that range, you have to use discrimination because otherwise you’d just have too many whites just because they’re more of them. The impression is left that in this range the people chosen would be randomly selected, because they’re all basically “equal”. So really it’s not bad because these whites and blacks are all in the *same* range, and instead of just randomly selecting among these equally qualified people, you just use a little affirmative action. You know, *just* 50-100 slots. Of course, it’s not mentioned that this range will be a GPA between 2.75 to 3.4 and an LSAT of 145-160, or something broad like that. But since you’ve created this wide range and made it seem like everyone in that group is basically equally qualified, it’s OK to discriminate. It’s just an intricate lie to make it sound like affirmative action is really just a tie breaker. It was in reaction to the Hopwood case and the statistics that within that borderline range 100% of blacks but only something like 6% of whites were getting in (and those whites very often had connections–political, economic, academic (you know, kids of friends of the law professors).

  2. Hull March 29, 2006 at 8:24 am | | Reply

    “Show me an affirmative action program that does no more than “take race into consideration.””

    the NFL’s affirmative action program for coaches. The NFL has a terrible track record of hiring minority coaches. They devised a program that requires NFL teams to interview a minority for a coaching position. NFL teams have trouble even accomplishing that simple goal.

    http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/997320

    Racism exists. There must be some measure to help counteract its effects on employment and education. Simply saying, “we’ll treat everyone fairly” is no more effective then a conveicted pedophile saying, “I’ll do the right thing” and relying on his word to keep children safe.

  3. John Rosenberg March 29, 2006 at 8:32 am | | Reply

    “Show me an affirmative action program that does no more than “take race into consideration.””

    the NFL’s affirmative action program for coaches. The NFL has a terrible track record of hiring minority coaches. They devised a program that requires NFL teams to interview a minority for a coaching position. NFL teams have trouble even accomplishing that simple goal.

    Thus you don’t regard this “you must interview” policy as sufficient, right?

    Don’t misunderstand: I’ve said many times that there are all sorts of “affirmative action” programs that would not require racial preference. My problem is not that they’re impossible; it’s that, with few exceptions, they don’t exist. And the ones that do exist are blasted by those who prefer preferences.

  4. Dom March 29, 2006 at 10:53 am | | Reply

    1. 10% of the head coaches in the NFL are minority.

    2. For some reason, no one thinks that AA should require the hiring of Asian coaches.

    3. No one thinks the players themselves are in need of diversity.

  5. den March 29, 2006 at 11:04 am | | Reply

    Hull….

    Citing the NFL’s mandatory “interview blacks” rule when hiring head coaches in this discussion of racial preferences in education et al. truly shows how silly our whole national race conciousness has become.

    Broadly speaking (the sample is way to small for a definitive societal reflection) black NFL head coaches mirror the numbers in America, year in and year out, subject to hiring and firing–maybe 3 or 4 or 5 coaches–of 32 teams. What is plainly disproportionate is the composition of rosters–about 70% black. In some positions–last year at cornerback and running back–there are no whites among 64 positions league wide. Prejudice against white boys? Let me stop laughing. Coaches decide who gives them the better chance of winning in the most fiercely competitive team sport we have (competitive in terms of going from last-to-first and first-to-last quickly).

    There isn’t one, not a single one, of the NFL’s owners who wouldn’t proudly, proudly, hire a lesbian eskimo (does such a soul exist?) if she could guarantee 12 wins a season. Mandating an interview for people based on skin color when there is no evidence whatsoever that skin color, and not best chance of winning, drives the hiring decision is silly, and only makes racial division more, not less, likely.

  6. Hull March 29, 2006 at 1:38 pm | | Reply

    The point was to show an AA program that does no more than take race into consideration. I think the NFL coaches program is an example and I think that this policy is sufficient in this case. Also, while the complaints have been focused on Black coaches, the program calls for teams to interview a MINORITY candidate, not a Black candidate. And yes, I do think there should be greater representation of other minorities for those positions, but the discrimination against Blacks in this case is so glaring because mainly Blacks and Whites play (and have played) professional football.

    The NFL coaches program today MAY be representative of population numbers but that doesn’t address the fact that since the inception of the NFL there have only been a handful of Black NFL coaches. If the numbers are better today, it’s because of a push from Affirmative Action proponents, Cyrus Mehri and Johnnie Cochran. People will not diversify left to their own devices. This is one reason why many people still belive that racism exists (racism of the majority against the minority not this imaginary tyranny of the minority that the majority falsely claims).

    As to the idea that minority coaches just aren’t up to the job: two of the top 5 teams in the AFC (Indianapolis, Cincinnati) and the #2 team in the NFC (Chicago) were coached by Blacks last year.

    It doesn’t bother anyone that the first Black NFL head coach was hired in 1989?

    As for discrimination against white players or non-Black players: I think that is totally valid and coaches at all levels should be pushed to encourage kids of all races to play. We’ve seen outstanding contributions from Samoan players over the last few years and that is due in no small part from efforts to achieve that dirty word DIVERSITY.

    People act like if they just say racism doesn’t exist, it wont. Comments like “den’s” (“Mandating an interview for people based on skin color when there is no evidence whatsoever that skin color, and not best chance of winning, drives the hiring decision is silly, and only makes racial division more, not less, likely.”) seem to be willfully blind to the reality of the history of this country and present resulting implications.

    NFL coaches are a perfect example and den’s comment is telling. Den, completely ignores the entire history of the NFL to arrive at the conclusion that today things are slightly fair, so paying attention to the racism that lead to things being MERELY slightly fair is somehow unjust. Just forget about the entire history that preceded this moment. The NFL started in 1902! Are you trying to tell me that they couldn’t find one qualified Black coach between 1902 and 1989?!?!?

  7. Den March 29, 2006 at 11:34 pm | | Reply

    Hull…

    You aren’t thinking very clearly here. No one here offered the “idea that minority coaches just aren’t up to the job”. Please don’t ascribe your racial thoughts to the rest of us, even as straw men. And this notion that because someone in the past may have been treated unfairly is somehow justification for racist decisions now regarding people who neither benefited from nor were hurt by the past is tiresome; you end racial discrimination by ending it. Duh.

    NFL owners, with huge investments and bigger egos, just want to win, with whoever, and you don’t seem to be able to plausibly argue otherwise.

    You’re saying that the presence of Samoans in football is due to a desire to achieve “DIVERSITY”? Put down that bong full of cliches about diversity for a moment. We’re talking about the NFL, not sociology class. They’re big and strong and hit like hell is why they achieve “outstanding contributions” as you say.

    Again, please tell me where is the racial discrimination against blacks now in the NFL? Things are “Slightly fair” and “MERELY slightly fair”? Blacks comprise 70% of rosters; what on earth would be “fair”? You’re the one that wants to count by race, not me. Give us a number so we will know what’s ok (and so gamblers like me can go with the teams that don’t worry about the color of the players–or coaches).

    I’ll tell you what, you seem to be so consumed with making decisions based on race, maybe you could suggest to the new commissioner, when he is hired, that the league hire you. To achieve “justice”, you could then mandate strict racial quotas mirroring society for coaches, ….and running backs, kickers and cornerbacks, to make up for the past, of course. (Don’t forget about our asian and mexican fan/citizens, they deserve representation too!) I wonder what the NFL Players Assn., that group of mostly black athletes, would say.

    I say they would get you fired.

  8. Hull March 30, 2006 at 10:53 am | | Reply

    “NFL owners, with huge investments and bigger egos, just want to win, with whoever, and you don’t seem to be able to plausibly argue otherwise.”

    If NFL owners “just wanted to win” don’t you think they might have hired ONE non-white head coach between 1902 and 1989? Are you saying that during those 87 years only white people were qualified to be head coaches?

    There were plenty of former non-white players during that time period. Perhaps ONE OF THEM might have been suitable for an assitant coach and then worked up to a head coach. Is it POSSIBLE that racism played some role in the fact that all head coaches were white in the NFL for 87 years???

    Basically your argument appears to be that a team hired a minority head coach in 1989, so that’s when racism in hiring head coaches ended. Since then, there have been several more hires, so there’s no reason to bring up what happened before 1989.

    The reason why the history of this case (NFL coaches) is important is that the meager number of minority head coaches TODAY is a result of more than just a concern for “winning”. There was a history of segregation and prejudice that banned minorites from those positions. Since the 60’s activists have pushed to reverse those trends. Again, it’s not like society began in 1989 when the first Black head coach was hired. We didn’t just wake up in the present day society where racism is generally disapproved of. There is a history to this case (as there is with many jobs/positions where minorities are disproportionately under-represented) that lead to today’s under-representation. That history influences the perception of minority candidates today and it was manifestly unfair. While the history is not the sole factor that leads to under-representation it IS a contributing factor and it is especially so in this case.

    Also, how is requiring that teams interview a minority(not hire mind you, JUST INTERVIEW) a “racist decision” as you say in your first paragraph? Are you saying that it is racist to consider someone other than a white person for a job???

  9. Den March 30, 2006 at 1:10 pm | | Reply

    Hull, my relentless friend….

    Yessirree, “requiring that teams interview a minority”, is racism, just as it would be to require anything else in this context BASED ON RACE.

    If you would just consider those words for a moment we might make some progress here.

    Respectfully,

    Den

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