Topic for Jul. 6. ( Thur )

[Alex !]

Affirmative Action 

Affirmative action, also known as positive action or positive discrimination (British English), involves sets of policies and practices within a government or organization seeking to include particular groups based on their gender, race, sexuality, creed or nationality in areas in which such groups are underrepresented — such as education and employment.

Historically and internationally, support for affirmative action has sought to achieve goals such as bridging inequalities in employment and pay, increasing access to education, promoting diversity, and redressing wrongs, harms, or hindrances.

The nature of affirmative-action policies varies from region to region and exists on a spectrum from a hard quota to merely targeting encouragement for increased participation.

Some countries use a quota system, reserving a certain percentage of government jobs, political positions, and school vacancies for members of a certain group; an example of this is the reservation system in India.

In some other jurisdictions where quotas are not used, minority-group members are given preference or special consideration in selection processes. In the United States, this system was widely used in college admissions, as upheld in the 2003 Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger, until 2023, when this was overturned in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

In the United Kingdom, hiring someone simply because of their protected-group status, without regard to their performance, is illegal. However, the law in the United Kingdom does allow for membership in a protected and disadvantaged group to be considered in hiring and promotion when the group is under-represented in a given area and if the candidates are of equal merit (in which case membership in a disadvantaged group can become a "tie-breaker").

An alternative approach, common in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe, is positive action. Under this approach, the focus tends to be on ensuring equal opportunity and, for example, targeted advertising campaigns to encourage ethnic minority candidates to join police forces. This is often described as being "color blind", but some American sociologists have argued that this is insufficient.

In the United States, affirmative action is controversial and public opinion on the subject is divided. Supporters of affirmative action argue that it promotes equality and representation for groups which are socio-economically disadvantaged or have faced historical discrimination or oppression.[need quotation to verify]

Opponents of affirmative action have argued that it is a form of reverse discrimination, that it tends to benefit the most privileged within minority groups at the expense of the least fortunate within majority groups,or that—when applied to universities—it can hinder minority students by placing them in courses for which they have not been adequately prepared.

In June 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States decided a landmark case, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, holding race-conscious college admissions processes to be unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.

However, the ruling does not explicitly apply to U.S. military academies, and it allows for students's discussion of race to continue to be considered in the context of "how race affected the applicant's life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university."

It’s pretty obvious why the racial portion of affirmative action is important. But, much like welfare, public housing and other social programs created to help all vulnerable people, Black students were made the poster children for affirmative action.

But much like welfare, public housing and other social programs created to help all vulnerable people, Black students were made the poster children for affirmative action.

Perhaps the most sinister end result of this racial stereotyping is the way it successfully pits Black and Asian communities against each other. The racist discourse around affirmative action teaches Asian students that they’re being disadvantaged in college admissions in favor of Black students.

As such, the myth of the model minority – who plays by the rules and has pulled themselves up by the bootstraps – has made many Asian Americans complicit in white supremacy’s strategy of anti-Blackness masked as fairness. The court’s decision will preserve meritocracy, which is the bedrock of the American dream.

American meritocracy is a myth that was crafted by the powerful to excuse their role in inequity. Work hard, and you can have anything you want. But what they really mean to say is: ignore all the socio-political realities that make life harder for some people, so we don’t have to talk about what makes it easier for others. Or how the two are inextricably linked.

why is race the only factor being scapegoated? Because here’s the thing: legacy admissions, donor admissions, athlete scholarships and other forms of admissions preferences are affirmative action. And some of the most effective kinds.

We found nearly half of all white students at Harvard were either athletes, had alumni parents, had donor parents or were children of Harvard employees. Only 57% of Harvard’s white students had gotten in on merit. Yet somehow the court decides two years later that that same school doesn’t need to be intentional about diversity? 

White women have made much further social progress than any other minoritized group since the words affirmative action were first placed within the law in 1935, yet they remain some of its strongest opponents.

Although formal race-linked legal barriers are gone, race still matters to the lived experiences of all Americans in innumerable ways, and today’s ruling makes things worse, not better.