Donald
Trump is in trouble again with the PC crowd for fingering affirmative action
(AA) as his next target. The more I see of this guy, the more I like him!
AA is both sex-based and race-based.
The former is not the issue it was a few years back, although it remains a thorn in the side for many a man sidelined for appointment or promotion because he had the misfortune to be up against a woman and thus the cards were stacked against him whatever his credentials. But it is race-based AA that is under the spotlight not because it has trodden on the toes of any nebulous ‘majority’ but rather those of some ‘minorities’.
AA is both sex-based and race-based.
The former is not the issue it was a few years back, although it remains a thorn in the side for many a man sidelined for appointment or promotion because he had the misfortune to be up against a woman and thus the cards were stacked against him whatever his credentials. But it is race-based AA that is under the spotlight not because it has trodden on the toes of any nebulous ‘majority’ but rather those of some ‘minorities’.
Some call it ‘positive
discrimination’. Whatever euphemism it goes by, it relegates White males to the
back of the queue.
In the US, tertiary
education has been shaping up as a race-based-AA battleground for quite some
time. An Asian American in 2006 launched a successful legal challenge in
California to the practice of subtracting 50 points from the SAT scores of
Asians while adding 240 to that of Negroes and 185 to that of Latinos. Since
that case, they’ve had to be more circumspect about the application of AA, but
it has continued nonetheless by ‘taking race into account’ when processing
admissions applications.
Not
surprisingly, it is Americans of Asian (including Indian) extraction who have
become vociferous about AA in higher education. On the basis of demographics,
Asian Americans have long been overrepresented in the nation’s top universities
and the elite programmes – a
reflection
of the value they place on attaining such goals and the sacrifice and effort
they put into achieving them.
‘Minorities’ that
traditionally work their butts off to make it in life have joined White boys in
being passed over in favour of other ‘minorities’.
It is
ironical that it is these ‘minorities’ who are now clamouring for equal treatment. In a democracy everyone
ought, by definition, to be treated equally. If I need a certain score in an
entrance examination to get into a highly competitive-entry university programme,
so should you, whoever and whatever you are. Meritocracy flows naturally from
the democratic imperative of equal treatment.
But the
notion of ‘equality’ has shifted in focus from the individual to the ‘group’
level, resulting in unequal treatment at the individual level. This raises the ideological
discrepancy between equality of opportunity
and equality of outcomes.
Ensuring equality
of opportunity is within the purview of the State. The US isn’t the best model at
the best of times given the prominence of the elite private university sector
that favours the wealthy, unlike NZ where all universities are public and where
my generation at least benefited from truly equal treatment through public
examinations such as the UE and UB in which the sex and race of candidates
played absolutely no part. We were markedly meritocratic once, as evidenced by
the number of higher professionals of humble social class origins who are
encountered among New Zealanders of my age group.
Things went
off the rails when equity began to
replace equality. Equity alludes to equality
of outcomes for ‘groups’ identified with reference to sex, race or some other arbitrary
attribute, and I do not believe that a democratic State has any role to play in
it. The State should create a level playing field by instigating meritocratic
selection mechanisms, but what subsequently creates individual outcomes is up
to those individuals to bring about through choices they make, such as choosing
to study and work hard rather than getting into all sorts of mischief in their
spare time. Personal values and individual effort translate ‘opportunity’ into
‘outcomes’. Meddling by the State in this process amounts to blatant social
engineering. It is un-meritocratic and thereby un-democratic.
But the PC-totalitarians
don’t like any mention of individuals making choices. They are the ultimate determinists:
what happens to you is attributable to your ‘group’ identity, not to the
exercise of free will. If you are White and male and succeed it’s because
you’re White and male, not because you expended a lot of time and energy on improving
yourself. The simplistic marxofascist paradigm has it that those who did not
succeed because they made the opposite choices must be the victims of oppression/discrimination
by those who did, and so the State has to step in and institute reverse discrimination,
which is what AA is.
Gender and
racial favouritism through AA sees many a competent and promising White guy being
passed over in employment decisions.
A few
months ago, the US Federal Aviation Authority issued a directive to the effect that
there were too many White males in airport control towers and demanding that
more non-White-males be appointed. Brace yourself for more near-misses and
maybe a few mid-air collisions and the like, although no doubt local
authorities will try to ensure that there are enough strategically placed White
males in the system to keep it running properly (touch wood).
There are
occasional but growing rumblings about White girls being sidelined for racial
reasons as well. Sex-based and race-based AA are not infrequently at
loggerheads during selection procedures. The latter appears to have the upper
hand right now but keep watching that space. It may be that internal conflict
which shakes the citadel of AA so hard that it comes crashing down.
Barend Vlaardingerbroek BA, BSc, BEdSt,
PGDipLaws, MAppSc, PhD is an associate professor of education at the American
University of Beirut and is a regular commentator on social and political
issues. Feedback welcome at bv00@aub.edu.lb
1 comment:
And then there was this nonsense of male Engineers using mathematics, physics and safety margins to design bridges.
The all female Munilla Construction Company built the Florida University bridge without any of that social construct, or later, blame.
I have done massive homework on Trump and we still have the Neocon New World Order Oil and power problem in Syria and Iran. The Trump association with Rothschild comes from his Atlanta Casino and a struggling Chicago project. There is simply no question now that the ISIS type terrorists were born in Afghanistan with the help of the [external to USA controlled] CIA, grew up in Libya and now firmly supported in Syria soon Iran. My guess is that > you step out of line on Syria or Iran Mr Trump you die, in return all the USA, NATO, Russia Ukraine stuff that's yours.
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