Do Preferentialists Really Want “A Level Playing Field”?

A constant plea of race and gender preferentialists is that we must continue preferences because, as a Michigan woman was quoted in today’s pretty good article by Tamar Lewin:

“We need to keep affirmative action because it’s still not a level playing field for women or minorities,” said Gena Morris, who is black, an event planner who volunteers at Democratic headquarters.

You hear these crocodile tears lamenting the absence of a “level playing field” so often that the phrase passes by as just so much partisan rhetoric, but let’s think about it for a moment. Playing fields are the sites of contests, competitions, in which one teams wins and one team loses, or some individuals win and others lose, and then they all go home and come back to play another day. (I know, I know; sometimes there’s a tie, and sometimes the games are rained out…. Hey, maybe we need a new rule: when there’s a tie, the team with the most minorities wins. Or the team with the most minorities gets a point or placement advantage. Oh, wait. That won’t work; minorities are “over-represented” in sports.)

I don’t think those who say preferences are needed until the playing field is level really mean it. They don’t want a level field; they want an equal, or at least a proportionally representative, score. If women are 50% of the population, they must be 50% of the players and win 50% of the competitions.

With all the talk about Michigan’s myriad female-only math camps being obliterated by the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (someone please tell me how many such camps there are!), has anyone noticed that, according to the University Record, as long ago as 1997 “48 percent of undergraduate math concentrators” at the University of Michigan were women?

How “level” does the “playing field” have to be?