Many critics of affirmative action based their criticism — too heavily, in my opinion — on its affront to merit, just as too many supporters mistakenly assume that affection for merit provides the only basis for criticism. I have argued with this merit mania many times, such as here. And as I said here,
I wish I didn’t have to keep repeating that the most fundamental, and also most persuasive, criticism of racial preference is not based on a false fealty to “merit.” Merit is nice. Most conservatives (and even many liberals) like it. But racial preferences would be wrong even if merit were not an issue.
Racial preference policies are wrong not because they often reward people who are less qualified (not necessarily unqualified, but often less qualified), though they do that, but because it is wrong to reward some and punish others because of their race.
Given the unfortunate prominence of “merit” in the debate over affirmative action, it is useful to recall that defenders of affirmative action are not alone in their disdain for it — or, perhaps more precisely, that groups who denigrate pure merit where affirmative action is concerned also denigrate it elsewhere. At the recent convention of the National Education Association, for example, one delegate proclaimed, “‘“Quite frankly, merit pay is union-busting, …’ to applause from her peers.”
Nor was she mistaken, at least as far as the NEA is concerned.
Officially, NEA policy allows for pay bonuses for teachers who hold advanced certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, for those who take on additional responsibilities such as mentoring less experienced teachers, and for teachers serving in hard-to-staff schools. It does not endorse higher salaries for math and science teachers or for performance-based pay. And it eschews the use of test scores in pay and evaluation decisions.
I wonder whether the NEA opposes higher pay for black and Hispanic teachers than for white and Asian teachers. If it does, wouldn’t that mean it accepts colorblindness as a binding principle?
