As a liberal I hanker after total equality, amongst other things and that means no discrimination.
Now, the trendy thing to do nowadays is to positively discriminate against the majority group, be it creed, race, sex or otherwise.
I don't think that's fair. I know that in the past minority groups have bee discriminated against and I am conscious to the fact that some wounds live on 'til this day, but I don't think that that's a valid excuse for discrimination against the discriminators of past.
Equality should be for all.
Rich::
I agree that I don't think making up for past discrimination can completely justify affirmative action. But I do think affirmative action (in education at least) IS justified by a combination of concerns: 1) making up for *past* discrimination, 2) making up for *current* discrimination, 3) creating a diverse student body which is vital to a well-rounded education.
There have been tons of social science studies which have made obvoius the ongoing discrimination against members marginalized racial groups and women. For instance, when the same resume is sent out with a "traditionally black sounding name" and a "traditionally white sounding name" the latter garners many more calls for interviews. When a female name is given as the author of a paper scholars give it a significantly lower rating than when a male name is given as author. Research in the area of stereotype threat has also shown that racial and gender stereotypes have a significant impact on how well folks perform on tests. (For instance, if you want to decrease women's scores on a math test relative to men, all you have to do is prime the women to think of their sex before the test, to increase the number of men in the room taking the test, or make the women try on bathing suits before the test. If you want to make white men's scores fall, just remind them how well Asian men tend to score on math tests. Want to close the gender gap in math scores (the one that is supposedly an immutable fact of nature)--just remind women that they attend an elite college and suddenly their scores match male's scores from the same level of school. It's actually quite amazing how the mind works in this regard.)
Given all this the idea that everyone should be treated equally regardless of race or gender is a nice thought, but it obvoiusly is never going to happen regardless of affirmative action. Whether or not affirmative action occurs, we know that traditionally oppressed groups continue to be discriminated against. If we really believe in equality, and we know that this is happening and that none of our laws requiring race- or sex-blindness have changed it, I think we have to accept something like positive discrimination.
Also, regardless of past or current discrimination, as a graduate student and a teacher of undergraduates, I believe in the value of diversity in the student body and faculty. I currently am part of a department which has 1 female professor and about 19 males, though graduate students are about 40% female. Since part of the job of these faculty is to mentor their graduate students and guide them into the academy, the situation is not conducive to the female graduate students success nor the success of the female professor. There are tons of gender issues which come up when it comes to entering academia, but with only one female around to act as a mentor, many of the female grad students in the department feel left out to sea. Also, it is quite obvious that many of the male grad students have forged friendships (often over beer) with some of the young male professors, and this is of course a big plus for the student's philosophical career. This is almost unheard of amongst the female graduate students, and I suspect part of the reason is that there's something uncomfortable about a young woman and a man in a powerful position over her getting chummy over drinks. Of course, I wish this weren't the case, but with the frequency of sexual harassment and the history of male faculty sleeping with or marrying their female students, I think both parties are understandably hesitant. This means that it isn't only the females in my discipline (philosophy) who suffer, but the discipline itself. Who knows how many females don't enter philosophy or enter a PhD program but leave it in part because they are getting the mentoring they need. When I was applying to graduate school, I was accepted a one Ivy League University that I was somewhat interested in. When I went to visit, I was informed by other females in the department that the class above mine was composed completely of males. Every single female I spoke to suggested that I should not accept the offer of admission until I knew that at least one more female had accepted. They thought that being the lone female in a male-dominated and stereotypically male discipline was such a disadvantage, that I would be better off accepting an offer at a worse department that had more females. It can't be good for a discipline when lack of diversity drives people to leave it or to enter it at a lower level than they could.
In addition, while I can see how sometimes particular cases of affirmative action can be, in some sense, unfair, I don't think that fairness is the only relevant value at issue. In fact, I don't think that the point of educational institutions is to be fair--the point is to provide the best education possible to their students. In my classroom I sometimes act in small ways that are not, strictly speaking, fair, because I think acting this way accomplishes something greater...giving my students the best education possible.
