Affirmative Action

[Soldier]

Most notably in college admissions, etc.

Anybody's thoughts on it?

[Gav]

Ahh, you mean Positive Bias [aka Positive Discrimination]...

It's another type of discrimination. Not very fair and creates as many problems as it solves. I worked [briefly] in the Civil Service and it's used there to "even up the numbers." In my experience it doesn't give disabled people or people ethnic minorties greater access rather it limits those better qualified. I'll give you an example:

you have applicants A and B. A is disabled B is not. b is better qualified but this vacany has been marked for Positive Discrimination. The hirer hasn't met his quota so gives the vacancy to A. B may well get a job elsewhere but the government misses out on a more talented individual.

Although A may be qualified for the role - has he actually gained it through merit or his own abilities? Has the fact of his new job done anything to alter peoples perception of the disabled? The answer to both of these is no. Although what the alternative is I'm not sure. Better education for one, better access to education for the disabled would all go a long way to helping people gain employment.

It's a bit of a thorny issue.

[esskreemr]

Ahh, you mean Positive Bias [aka Positive Discrimination]...

you have applicants A and B. A is disabled B is not. b is better qualified but this vacany has been marked for Positive Discrimination. The hirer hasn't met his quota so gives the vacancy to A. B may well get a job elsewhere but the government misses out on a more talented individual.

Although A may be qualified for the role - has he actually gained it through merit or his own abilities? Has the fact of his new job done anything to alter peoples perception of the disabled? The answer to both of these is no. Although what the alternative is I'm not sure. Better education for one, better access to education for the disabled would all go a long way to helping people gain employment.

It's a bit of a thorny issue.

You may be confusing Affirmative Action with racial quotas. As Per Affirmative Action, if two individuals are equally qualified, the "minority" individual should recieve preference.

That's the letter of the law. The actual implementation probably varies between refusal to implement to "reverse discrimination".

[Gav]

I think things may be different in the UK. There is no law about this, although there is the disability discrimination act which pretty much is as you describe it.

[jBirch]

In Canada it is called "Ethnic Diversity". The idea is that your workforce should reflect the talent pool that it is drawing from. It's good and bad in that it identifies problems where they exist but doesn't help proactively. In Canada, it's perfectly fair to say that 100% of our applicants were white males so 100% of our workforce is too. We did not discriminate against minorities in our advertising process, it's just that all white guys applied and we took the best. If 1 black guy applies and he is clearly underqualified then it's fair that he's not hired. You just have document why you rejected them if anyone calls asking. If however, you get 100 black guys applying and one white guy who is clearly underqualified and you hire him based on "Team Fit" or something, then be prepared for legal action.

Seems sane to me.

Hope this helps.

[Soldier]

You may be confusing Affirmative Action with racial quotas. As Per Affirmative Action, if two individuals are equally qualified, the "minority" individual should recieve preference.

That's the letter of the law. The actual implementation probably varies between refusal to implement to "reverse discrimination".

As you said, the letter of the law. Unfortunately, I think it frequently does not work that way.

I was most aware of it about two years ago, when I was applying to colleges - especially since most colleges use a "scoring system" on their applications, taking various answers into numerical account. There was at least one that I am aware of where being black was worth more than having a 1600 SAT. I cringed every time I had to mark "White/Caucasian" on an application.

What surprised me the most, I think, was during basic, when we got a lecture on not discriminating, etc. The captain delivering the lecture said he thought it was a good idea to give preference to minorities. I asked if this was not simply reverse discrimination, and he simply said he thought it unfortunate that the country had not progressed yet to the point where we didn't need that. Really kind of scared me to hear that.

[KShan5[PrFC]]

I think i'm just going to check,"prefere not to answer" for my race. Being white, RCC,Irish doens't really help.

[ls14evar]

Affirmative action should die in a fire.
:P

How long untill the free ride ends and they are expected to stand and work and live up to the standards of all the other citizens.

[jeff]

As long as we're on 'preferences', let's also consider alumni family preferences (also called "legacies"), where children of alums get preference for admission. This gives advantage towards candidates whose parents had access to college (eg: primarily white and wealthy). Isn't that a free ride?

[Soldier]

Perhaps not free, but certainly another unfair criterion - thanks for bringing it up.

[keith]

As long as we're on 'preferences', let's also consider alumni family preferences (also called "legacies"), where children of alums get preference for admission. This gives advantage towards candidates whose parents had access to college (eg: primarily white and wealthy). Isn't that a free ride?

nope, they are just better people.

Not to mention the importance of maintaining a nice healthy donor list.

[mollusk]

If it wasn't for trying to maintain some type of diversity in graduate enrollments in engineering in the US, you'd find very few white US-citizen males enrolled. Almost every slot would be taken by students from PRC, India, or Korea if they were taken solely on the metrics. Should we get rid of this type of reverse discrimination, too?

Just to be pre-emptive here: I spent eight years administering the graduate program in an engineering department at a major US research university, so I do know what I'm talking about.

[jeff]

nope, they are just better people.

Huh? You want to explain why a dummy whose Dad went to Dear Old Ivy is "better people"? Spell it out

If it wasn't for trying to maintain some type of diversity in graduate enrollments in engineering in the US, you'd find very few white US-citizen males enrolled

Good point - thanks.

[keith]

Huh? You want to explain why a dummy whose Dad went to Dear Old Ivy is "better people"? Spell it out

didn't you know that rich people are just better? Its the american way. The poor are just evil, in between looking for a free ride, good job they are so lazy or we would be over run with a whole mess of evilness.

[scrapinpeg]

Affirmative Action is a reaction to the following presumptions:

1) that members of certain segments of the population are automatically at a disadvantage for admissions or employment;

2) that this disadvantage is due to such a variety of social, economic, historical and legal factors that it would be nigh impossible to correct them all;

3) that justice requires that individuals be treated as they would have been had such factors not put them at a disadvantage; and

4) the best way to remedy the situation is to give extra preference to members of such population groups, in order to afford them opportunities that otherwise would not have existed merely because of their membership in such groups.

This sounds like a decent and honorable goal. But there are several problems with it:

a) People who do not need the preference receive it anyway, because they happen to belong to an identified group.

b) People who do need such a preference, but are not of the correct population group, do not receive it.

c) People who are perfectly qualified cannot be sure whether they were given a position because they earned it, and can be accused of that.

d) People who are not qualified get in over their heads, and wind up failing when they could have done perfectly well somewhere else appropriate to their actual ability.

d) Qualified or not, all given such preferences are victims of what is known as the "soft bigotry of low expectations."

e) Valid or not, the practice gives rise to resentment among those who perceive that they will be victims of such preferences. This has the effect of increasing the racism and other social ills that AA is trying to alleviate.

f) In the marketplace, the practice gives rise to significant fraud. For example, government contracts are given at a preference to female/minority owned businesses -- they can win a bid even if their price is higher than the competition. Many businesses simply put the company in the name of a wife or girlfriend to qualify for such preferences and gain unfair advantage in the marketplace.

g) Perceived general discrimination is being fought with specific individual discrimination. You're black, so though we don't know whether you have actually been discriminated against in some way relevant to our decision, we're going to suppose that you have. And therefore we are going to discriminate against someone else based on the fact that they are not black.

Now these problems may well be outweighed by the overall justice gained by enacting Affirmative Action.

However, wouldn't it be better to determine whether 1) this particular candidate has been discriminated against requiring remedy, regardless of general population group; 2) this particular individual is capable, so that there is no doubt as to merit; and 3) such a preference will actually remedy the injustice done to this particular individual.

[jeff]

didn't you know that rich people are just better? Its the american way. The poor are just evil, in between looking for a free ride, good job they are so lazy or we would be over run with a whole mess of evilness.

Sorry Keith, my irony detector was turned off...

[keith]

Sorry Keith, my irony detector was turned off...

but on a serious note, a couple of observations on college/university admissions.

Entry grades are determined by demand, not by the minimum academic level thought to be required to succesfully complete a given course.

The 'thought to be' bit is important as predictors of academic success are very poor - once you have passed a given threshold determined by the actual course of study.

So for unpopular courses affirmative action generally only swaps one group of students likely to drop out with another just as likely to drop out.

In high demand courses the entry requirements are so high that they automatically cut out those who are unlikely to be able to complete the course for academic reasons (the thickies are weeded out regardless of their skin colour or socioeconomic background).

All the fuss about affirmative action tends to be over this second group of courses - and the problem now is that the entry grades are no longer predicitive of success in the course. So there is nothing wrong with an institution using whatever criteria to select the lucky few who get in - they are not swapping the worthy from the unworthy as they cannot tell the two apart. Flinging the applications down the stairwell would generate a group of students just as likely to do well in the course.

[epeezack]

Its nothing but Affermative Racisim.

Stupid Jesse Jackson

[keith]

Its nothing but Affermative Racisim.

Stupid Jesse Jackson

hey its not Jesse's fault you're a stupid white guy.

Hire a lawyer and sue your parents, school and peer group.

[jeff]

but on a serious note, a couple of observations on college/university admissions.

Good points, Keith. I haven't looked, but I wonder if there are studies showing correlation (or lack) between factors like SAT score, affirmative action status, etc (I almost typed "&etc", but pkt would have said something ) on grades at the junior or senior level, on acceptance into graduate school, and (drum roll) on success achieved in the "real world" outside school.