I recently criticized (here) the endorsement of racial preferences by the Catholic Church. The particular style of its endorsement, however, is not uniquely Catholic; on the contrary, it is quite common, and goes something like this: “We believe in the principle of colorblind equality, but since discrimination and its effects still exist acting on that principle now would be premature.” Or, as the Catholic worthies put it in the article I cited above:
“As people of faith, we are obliged to pray and work for our society to overcome the past and present effects of discrimination,” said Msgr. Robert McClory, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Detroit, at an April 6 press conference in metro Detroit for One United Michigan.
“We look with hope for the day when the effects of discrimination will be overcome,” he added. “Sadly, that day has not yet arrived and therefore we oppose this ballot proposal.”
And from Cardinal Adam J. Maida of Detroit:
“Sadly, our society has still not fully overcome the effects of past and present discrimination,” said Cardinal Maida in a statement. “Therefore, please know that the Catholic Church sees the continued importance of affirmative action [i.e., distributing burdens and benefits based on race] to ensure that justice is served for all people and that equal opportunities are afforded to all in every aspect of life, especially education and employment.”
Well, I agree. This is sad.
Note how this sort of justification is never accompanied by any sort of check list by which we can determine when the “effects” of past discrimination have been eradicated (diminished?) sufficiently enough for us to stop continuing to discriminate.
I confess (maybe writing about Catholics is getting to me): I find it hard to believe that so many people make this sort of argument, and that so many others take it seriously. Would they give equal respect to someone who said, for example, “I’m a pacifist, but we can’t give up war as an instrument of policy as long as there are nations that refuse to act peacefully”? Or what about: “I believe in the sanctity of private property, but we can’t object to governmental confiscation and redistribution as long as disparities in ownership continue to exist”?
What these not-reduction-ad-absurdum comparisons indicate is that, despite what they say, preferentialists don’t really believe in the “without regard” principle of colorblind non-discrimination. Oh, they might like it in an “ideal world” or at some point in the future, when the lions lie down with the lambs. But in our (or any reasonably foreseeable) world? Fuhgettaboutit.
Oddly, the position of the Catholic hierarchy on racial discrimination quoted here reminds me of the awkward and inconsistent position of many Catholic politicians on abortion: they proclaim fidelity to the Church’s position, but come up with all sorts of reason why they refuse to act on it. (I’ve discussed this at length regarding Mario Cuomo, Joe Califano, and John Kerry here, here, here, and here.) As I wrote in the second of those posts,
I suppose what I’m saying is that Cuomo’s and Califano’s convictions aren’t what they think they are. As I either said or implied in my earlier post on Cuomo, the arguments they offer to justify their acquiescence to abortion, sterilization, etc. were also employed to justify acquiescence to slavery. I suspect the simple fact is that neither of them think abortion is as bad as slavery. If they did, they wouldn’t have been so willing to go along with it.
Similarly, preferentialists don’t really believe in the principle of colorblind non-discrimination. That is, they don’t believe that principle prevents the state from preferring some races over others whenever, in the preferentialists’ opinion, it has a good reason to do so. But they have a problem: all of our civil rights laws are proclaim that “no person” (not “no group,” not “until some later golden age”) should be discriminated against because of race. Even, as I’ve noted a number of times recently, affirmative action itself was instituted to reinforce the “without regard” principle, as the Kennedy and Johnson presidential executive orders explicitly stated. Courts have thus had to ignore or twist that language beyond recognition whenever they have acquiesced to racial preferences.
Finally, let’s close with a counterfactual mind game. Imagine a fantasy world, much unlike our own, where courts interpreted statutes as written. In this world we would confront a clear but stark choice: we could have legislation that would bar discrimination based on race and ethnicity; or we could have the freedom to bestow preferences on needy races and ethnicities. But we couldn’t have both.
How many preferentialists would be willing not only to sacrifice civil rights laws to preferences — after all, they’re already doing that every day — but to admit that the “without regard” principle should not simply be disregarded but repealed?
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I think that’s a pretty common position, except that we don’t call those people “pacifists” so much as “hawks”.