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Arguing Affirmative Action - Coggle Diagram
Arguing Affirmative Action
Why should affirmative action be argued?
A minor reason:
-To correct the testing gap between non-white and white students.
“Some studies show that black and hispanic students on the whole score lower than white students on standardized tests, even adjusting for economic class” (Sandel 169). 📝
A major reason: Compensating for Past Wrongs
“Minority students should be given preference to make up for a history of discrimination” (Sandel 170).
Argument Against this reason:
The people who benefit from affirmative action aren’t necessarily the people who have suffered (ex. Middle class or upper class minorities).
A major reason: To help promote diversity everywhere. 🙎🏼♂️ 🌎🙎🏽♂️
For the common good of the school and of society, diversity should be promoted because it “enables students to learn more from one another than they would if all of them came from similar backgrounds” (Sandel 171).
What are the arguments against this reason?
There are two objections
The Practical Objection:
Affirmative action may not be the most effective way to promote a more diverse society because it might damage the self-esteem of minority students and inspire jealousy form white ethnic groups because minority students may feel that they only got accepted because of a diversity quota and white ethnic groups may feel that they should get a opportunities like affirmative action as well.
The Principled Objection:
If a person has the grades to get into a top university, they should get into it because while they cannot control where they were brought up, they can control their grades and test scores.
Do racial preferences violate rights?
Using race or ethnicity in admissions process is unfair as it puts some at competitive disadvantage :forbidden:
Ronald Dworkin: What rights are being violated :question:
Admissions aren't to reward honors or virtues, but rather enhances university mission.
Racial Segregation and Anti-Jewish Quotas
Can colleges freely define their mission statements
Quotas of Ivy League Universities: Justifiable because they are private, not public :question:
What difference is there between race excluding people in segregation and including people in affirmative action :question:
Excluding because of race is inferior
Affirmative Action for Whites?
Does Affirmative Action's diversity arguement allow for white preference :question:
Starrett City: Brooklyn, NY, apartment limited African American and Hispanic population to 40%
Neighborhood became more desirable than prior to quota
Racial preference doesn't violate rights if: :check: Diversity serves common good :check: nobody is discriminated against based on hatred
Can justice be detached from moral desert?
The renunciation of moral desert as the basis of distributive justice is morally attractive
Attractive to those who think rich are rich because they deserve it more
It's also unsettling
The idea that jobs or opportunities are rewarded to the more deserving is much more prevalent in the United States that other countries.
Feel less responsibility towards others
Justice is honorific, not just about who deserves what
Why not auction college admission?
Would auctioning off seats to the highest bidders be fair?
If merit = ability to contribute to the mission, yes, as all universities need money to achieve their mission (182).
What if the mission is to create equality? Does selling seats create this? Do the high bidders of these admissions seats really promote the college's admission?
Selling these seats isn't prejudiced, but instead the result of bad luck.
In the last year, colleges like USC, Yale, and other prestigious universities had employees get caught as part of a pay to enter scandal.
What is unjust about selling university seats?
"The just way of allocating access to a good may have something to do with the nature of that good, with its purpose" (182).
How can excellence and civic good be balanced?
Colleges aren't the same as a retailer, and their end goal isn't revenue.
If a university is more focused on the money (especially when generated from admissions) than the civic good, they violate their mission and reason for existing.
People's ideas around honor and virtue differ, as well as their ideas of the purpose of institutions like universities. Modern philosophies are what try to explain whether ideas such as this are just or not.