In the Harvard case, the beneficiaries of affirmative action were not Nth generation descendants of American slaves but by and far more likely to be first or second generation wealthier African immigrants. You cannot cite righting historical wrongs as your reasoning if you’re not actually benefiting anyone who was harmed by those wrongs.
Agreed. As I wrote above, affirmative action is flawed and I think the decision was the proper one, while I also think there is much to be done. It is not acceptable that we just move on as if society did no harm and society bears no responsibility.
Yes, but my focus was on the two vastly different approaches of the two Justices to race and affirmative action in a wider and general context than these two very specific cases.
I think the specific case is a good example of why you will not get an outcome anyone thinks is good from previous policies.
I principal, addressing historical wrongs is good. In practice you get an excuse to exclude Asians on the basis of race and little to no benefit to black students.
If your preferred policy is not getting the result you want, you have to ask if the theory is actually correct.
There's an ambiguity here that I've run into before and I think deserves a bit of elucidation.
You quote Justice Thomas, fairly unfavorably:
'And he further alleges, “As [Jackson] sees things, we are all inexorably trapped in a fundamentally racist society, with the original sin of slavery and the historical subjugation of black Americans still determining our lives today.”'
And yet, at the start, you make the case for affirmative action with:
"Let me state at the outset that I am in favor of affirmative action as a policy that attempts to help right the wrongs of American history. I believe that stewards of best-in-class institutions, whether universities or countries, have a moral responsibility to make amends for past sins."
Where do you see the dividing line between these? I mean, we're not running a cost-benefit analysis here, this is phrased strictly on moral terms, and fairly strict ones, and it's common on left-of-center discourse. Where do you see the dividing line between the moral case for affirmative actions vs the way Justice Thomas phrased it?
Thomas did engage in intellectual dishonesty in critiquing his own straw man version of Jackson's dissent. So, yes, I phrased that accordingly.
You ask a great question for which I don't have a great answer. Having more black people enjoy the social capital of elite colleges as well as elite prep schools seems reasonable to me. Scholarships and admissions to elite prep schools are game changers for kids, maybe more so than colleges.
More black and Latino doctors are a good thing for health outcomes for those populations. And efforts to hire people of color into businesses like banking and investing where there is severe underrepresentation also seem good to me.
I am very much not in favor of cash reparations. That seems way over the line.
So, where is the line? Although I'm not in favor of governments giving business to minority owned businesses if they can't win the business on their own merits, I am in favor of making sure that minority owned businesses have an equal shot at being hired. So, there, maybe that's my line.
Oh, I'm sorry, I don't think I phrased this correctly. You seem to be answering the question of where the line in what we should do is, where I'm trying to disentangle the line between moral and material objectives. Maybe an example, using education:
So there's a potential universe where slavery et al is a great moral sin and hiring more African-American teachers doesn't hurt anyone and it helps African-American students. In this universe, this is morally good and materially good.
There's another potential universe where slavery et al is a great moral sin and hiring more African-American teachers helps African-American students but it also hurts other students. And, as other students, outnumber African-American students, the cost-benefit analysis is overall negative, making morally good and materially bad.
There's also a third potential universe where slavery et al is a bad thing but not a great moral sin, certainly not as bad as treating different ethnicities differently, and it's materially harmful as above, making this morally bad and materially bad.
And I don't think what I made clear is whether your stance is primarily moral or primarily material. For example, I'm confident that you would say there is no conflict because these programs and both morally and materially beneficial. But, and in like year 20 of the replication crisis you should not be too confident in these headline stats, if I could make a factual case that we live in universe where affirmative action programs are a net negative, that even if they help African-Americans this is outweighed by harms to Asian and White Americans, would you change your mind or would the moral element, this great sin, require you to keep supporting affirmative action.
Because if you would change your mind, this is just a factual debate and, honestly, that's not the animating vibe I get from the left these days. Conversely, if it is primarily a moral issue...how do you not fall into Justice Thomas' critique of moralism?
"if I could make a factual case that we live in universe where affirmative action programs are a net negative, that even if they help African-Americans this is outweighed by harms to Asian and White Americans, " I regard this as a false premise. Are there downsides for some White Americans? Sure. Do the harms to Asian and White people outweigh the good? No, unless you think that going to a different Ivy League school, other than Harvard, is catastrophic.
"There's another potential universe where slavery et al is a great moral sin and hiring more African-American teachers helps African-American students but it also hurts other students. And, as other students, outnumber African-American students, the cost-benefit analysis is overall negative, making morally good and materially bad." If they outnumber the non-white students, it is largely due to past preferential treatment at the college level and even more-so due to the failure of schools in communities of color.
"You ask a great question for which I don't have a great answer. Having more black people enjoy the social capital of elite colleges as well as elite prep schools seems reasonable to me. Scholarships and admissions to elite prep schools are game changers for kids, maybe more so than colleges."
Well, how about this? Expand enrollment. Create new educational opportunities. Is enrollment a zero sum game?
After having read three reactions to the Supreme Court decision regarding race preferences, I remain satisfied that this case was decided in the best possible way. By that I mean the result of the majority decision will most benefit the nation, and follows the Constitution better, than would have been the case with the opposite decision. Since that is not the subject of this column, and since I don't have a red pencil that was twitching as I read the opinion of Justice Thomas, I won't spend time agreeing or arguing with this column.
What I will do is share two thoughts: first, there is in our population a segment that is not unhappy with continued racial friction (all the while purporting to want to "level the playing field,") and second, there are far more important social injustices in our educational system, touching many more students, than who will be admitted to Harvard and UNC.
Not to tell you, Mr Roberts, how to manage your intellectual space. Rather, I'm thinking on paper about what I find more challenging and ultimately more socially and politically urgent than how Justices Jackson and Thomas see race in America. Just sayin'.
Agree about social injustice issues that are much more impactful than affirmative action. As for education, I think the biggest bang for our buck is direct cash payments to help parents better support their kids, i.e., some version of the expanded Child Tax Credit from 2021. Hard to get a good education when your family and you are impoverished. I like the directness of that sort of initiative.
And you are encouraged to tell me what you think is worth my time writing and your time reading!
Aha, Mr Roberts -- classic Aristitolean deflection. I salute you!
Your opening gambit is challenging. Can we envision a form of federal financial support that would result in improved education for our youth? It is not as if many people have ignored this proposal before.
So I will accept your invitation to examine subjects that would challenge you and your readers alike, but not on the pages of your discussion group: it would bore some of your readers and irritate most of the rest.
You have my email address. If you would like to engage me, feel free to write. Fred
I encourage you to engage openly. Let us all do so. Discussion of such important issues ought not be debates in which one, or the other, can declare a win. They are opportunities for us to brainstorm and, at best, pick a bit from your thoughts and Mr. Roberts' and mine and others and, if we are truly fortunate, forge some new idea that will help improve society.
I get your question now. It's even harder to answer than my initial take on it. We can easily agree on your first scenario. I would disagree with the premise of your third scenario, although I'm well aware that others would agree with it.
So I find myself somewhere in the second scenario where it is a matter of balancing the moral and the material. And if I saw data that indicated that policies were doing a lot of material harm, however measured, with little to show for it, then yes I'd hope that I'd readily change my mind. The measurement would be really challenging!
I am not well versed or read in this topic. From what I think "I k ow" is that we spend more and more money on education in disadvantaged and poor socioeconomic areas and again it seems like this isn't changing things for the better. This could all be propagated lies of course.
I guess my only other curiosity in this ...what about the American Indian kids left behind? The Hispanic kids left behind? I again could be wrong but this seems like the focus of African American kids and Asian American kids...I feel like it's a turf war. It boggles my mind.
I recognize that where you live, your social circumstances, etc will affect your life. Maybe we should be looking farther upstream to how the family unit in certain groups is wholly broken? Maybe even white families as well. If we foster education as a goal from the whole family unit, would be get kids earlier into education avoiding the need for "special treatment" (affirmative action)?
I think earlier intervention is essential, and I think the intervention needs to be direct financial support for parents well up the income ladder. America is an outlier among wealthy nations in terms of child support. Such a policy would be disproportionately beneficial to families of color, but has the virtue of not being aimed at race.
I see that. Wondering how we could ever keep the corruption out of this. I know a GF of a friend...who took in foster kids...and spent the money on herself and not the kids. This may be the exception. But the everything free for me aspect makes me skeptical.
Reading John McWhorter's response..."School funding cannot explain the poor performance of central-city black youth. For example, let’s look at five cities where blacks are the largest share of the population: Detroit, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Philadelphia. Across these cities, only 25% and 28% of black fourth graders are reading and doing math, respectively, at grade level. These rates are about half the national black rate and one-third the national white rate. However, more school funding will probably make little difference, since these five cities already have some of the highest per pupil expenditures among the 100 largest US school districts."
Whatever the merits of “affirmation action”, whether through quotas or “plus factors”, did the court address the universities’ opinion that the racial diversity of a student body is something that they should be allowed to pursue?
My understanding is that many colleges and universities use race and a number of other demographic characteristics (eg gender; state and country of residence) to create a diverse student body that reflects different experiences and viewpoints. If these demographic goals are errant shortcuts to that objective then it seems that is the college’s business for better or for worse. It is not the court’s business unless such policies can be shown to be discriminatory in nature.
Does favoring a kid from Montana to make sure that all 50 states are represented “discriminate” against a kid from Massacheusetts? Etc.
Sorry for the delay, I just to reading this very interesting post. As is often the case, no one has it all right or all wrong. Let me start by saying we should not go on ignoring the horrific legacy of institutionalized slavery and discrimination. I applaud the intent behind affirmative action and we must find ways to help those whose lives today are still impacted by the long-term legacy of the nation's sins. I did, however, always think that affirmative action was flawed, because it is based on racism. It called for selecting students based on racial characteristics. If racism is wrong, it is wrong no matter who is practicing it. I feel the same way about the death penalty. If killing is wrong, it cannot be right just because it is sanctioned by the state. In both cases, we must seek out better solutions that are morally consistent with the notion that Racism/Murder are wrong.
Furthermore, there certainly are downsides to affirmative action as it has existed. A friend in high school was admitted to an Ivy League college solely because he is black, despite being woefully underqualified. He should have failed but Cornell somehow handed him a degree after 4 years. Armed with that degree, he applied to Georgetown Law and was accepted and later graduated on time. Of course, he was unable to pass the bar and finally took a position as a janitor in a public school system. I suspect he was not the only one to suffer harsh disillusionment at the hands of affirmative action, which failed him miserably. He was not stupid. He could have gone to another college and been trained for any number of other jobs, instead of being crushed by a well-intentioned but ill-planned system.
I think the recent ruling presents an opportunity for American institutions and society writ large. What we have now is a new blank slate, free of affirmative action, on which to design and implement new programs that look at the roots, not the buds. The roots are the elementary schools and neighborhoods that, left alone on their current course, will not improve lives. We must teach the children and, in doing so, seek out and support those who should be going to college and seek out and support those who should not. I live in a community full of NYC first responders and trades workers and they own their homes and many will be sending their kids to college. We should support those who can step into those roles as much as the college-bound. If the Harvards and UNCs of the world really want to do good, not just polish their images, invest in those communities that need help. Surely, there must be ways to do this without employing racism.
David, I just finished reading all the comments to date (and inserting my own). Bravo for putting this discussion out there. It needs to take place. Better solutions need to be found to some very, very deep problems.
Love the idea of taking a red pencil to Thomas! Would argue, though--against several of the comments here--that removing racial consideration via AA does NOT result in eliminating racial biases in deliberations. It leaves behind the biases that are “baked into” history, values, and consciousness. AA counterbalances those “invisible” biases, which actually operated as affirmative action for white males throughout history.
Yahoo News reposts a clarification of Justice Jackson's assertion regarding survival rates for black and white children treated by white physicians. The accuracy of the statistic is questionable.
"For high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live, and not die.”
It seemed then and seems now obvious she was referring to infant mortality. I don't know how anyone could interpret it any other way.
The math dictates that actually doubling survival would mean that, currently, survival with white doctors delivering black babies would have to be under 50%. That's obviously the wrong inference.
In the Harvard case, the beneficiaries of affirmative action were not Nth generation descendants of American slaves but by and far more likely to be first or second generation wealthier African immigrants. You cannot cite righting historical wrongs as your reasoning if you’re not actually benefiting anyone who was harmed by those wrongs.
Agreed. As I wrote above, affirmative action is flawed and I think the decision was the proper one, while I also think there is much to be done. It is not acceptable that we just move on as if society did no harm and society bears no responsibility.
Lucid and helpful synthesis!
Yes, but my focus was on the two vastly different approaches of the two Justices to race and affirmative action in a wider and general context than these two very specific cases.
I think the specific case is a good example of why you will not get an outcome anyone thinks is good from previous policies.
I principal, addressing historical wrongs is good. In practice you get an excuse to exclude Asians on the basis of race and little to no benefit to black students.
If your preferred policy is not getting the result you want, you have to ask if the theory is actually correct.
There's an ambiguity here that I've run into before and I think deserves a bit of elucidation.
You quote Justice Thomas, fairly unfavorably:
'And he further alleges, “As [Jackson] sees things, we are all inexorably trapped in a fundamentally racist society, with the original sin of slavery and the historical subjugation of black Americans still determining our lives today.”'
And yet, at the start, you make the case for affirmative action with:
"Let me state at the outset that I am in favor of affirmative action as a policy that attempts to help right the wrongs of American history. I believe that stewards of best-in-class institutions, whether universities or countries, have a moral responsibility to make amends for past sins."
Where do you see the dividing line between these? I mean, we're not running a cost-benefit analysis here, this is phrased strictly on moral terms, and fairly strict ones, and it's common on left-of-center discourse. Where do you see the dividing line between the moral case for affirmative actions vs the way Justice Thomas phrased it?
Thomas did engage in intellectual dishonesty in critiquing his own straw man version of Jackson's dissent. So, yes, I phrased that accordingly.
You ask a great question for which I don't have a great answer. Having more black people enjoy the social capital of elite colleges as well as elite prep schools seems reasonable to me. Scholarships and admissions to elite prep schools are game changers for kids, maybe more so than colleges.
More black and Latino doctors are a good thing for health outcomes for those populations. And efforts to hire people of color into businesses like banking and investing where there is severe underrepresentation also seem good to me.
I am very much not in favor of cash reparations. That seems way over the line.
So, where is the line? Although I'm not in favor of governments giving business to minority owned businesses if they can't win the business on their own merits, I am in favor of making sure that minority owned businesses have an equal shot at being hired. So, there, maybe that's my line.
Oh, I'm sorry, I don't think I phrased this correctly. You seem to be answering the question of where the line in what we should do is, where I'm trying to disentangle the line between moral and material objectives. Maybe an example, using education:
So there's a potential universe where slavery et al is a great moral sin and hiring more African-American teachers doesn't hurt anyone and it helps African-American students. In this universe, this is morally good and materially good.
There's another potential universe where slavery et al is a great moral sin and hiring more African-American teachers helps African-American students but it also hurts other students. And, as other students, outnumber African-American students, the cost-benefit analysis is overall negative, making morally good and materially bad.
There's also a third potential universe where slavery et al is a bad thing but not a great moral sin, certainly not as bad as treating different ethnicities differently, and it's materially harmful as above, making this morally bad and materially bad.
And I don't think what I made clear is whether your stance is primarily moral or primarily material. For example, I'm confident that you would say there is no conflict because these programs and both morally and materially beneficial. But, and in like year 20 of the replication crisis you should not be too confident in these headline stats, if I could make a factual case that we live in universe where affirmative action programs are a net negative, that even if they help African-Americans this is outweighed by harms to Asian and White Americans, would you change your mind or would the moral element, this great sin, require you to keep supporting affirmative action.
Because if you would change your mind, this is just a factual debate and, honestly, that's not the animating vibe I get from the left these days. Conversely, if it is primarily a moral issue...how do you not fall into Justice Thomas' critique of moralism?
"if I could make a factual case that we live in universe where affirmative action programs are a net negative, that even if they help African-Americans this is outweighed by harms to Asian and White Americans, " I regard this as a false premise. Are there downsides for some White Americans? Sure. Do the harms to Asian and White people outweigh the good? No, unless you think that going to a different Ivy League school, other than Harvard, is catastrophic.
"There's another potential universe where slavery et al is a great moral sin and hiring more African-American teachers helps African-American students but it also hurts other students. And, as other students, outnumber African-American students, the cost-benefit analysis is overall negative, making morally good and materially bad." If they outnumber the non-white students, it is largely due to past preferential treatment at the college level and even more-so due to the failure of schools in communities of color.
"You ask a great question for which I don't have a great answer. Having more black people enjoy the social capital of elite colleges as well as elite prep schools seems reasonable to me. Scholarships and admissions to elite prep schools are game changers for kids, maybe more so than colleges."
Well, how about this? Expand enrollment. Create new educational opportunities. Is enrollment a zero sum game?
After having read three reactions to the Supreme Court decision regarding race preferences, I remain satisfied that this case was decided in the best possible way. By that I mean the result of the majority decision will most benefit the nation, and follows the Constitution better, than would have been the case with the opposite decision. Since that is not the subject of this column, and since I don't have a red pencil that was twitching as I read the opinion of Justice Thomas, I won't spend time agreeing or arguing with this column.
What I will do is share two thoughts: first, there is in our population a segment that is not unhappy with continued racial friction (all the while purporting to want to "level the playing field,") and second, there are far more important social injustices in our educational system, touching many more students, than who will be admitted to Harvard and UNC.
Not to tell you, Mr Roberts, how to manage your intellectual space. Rather, I'm thinking on paper about what I find more challenging and ultimately more socially and politically urgent than how Justices Jackson and Thomas see race in America. Just sayin'.
Agree about social injustice issues that are much more impactful than affirmative action. As for education, I think the biggest bang for our buck is direct cash payments to help parents better support their kids, i.e., some version of the expanded Child Tax Credit from 2021. Hard to get a good education when your family and you are impoverished. I like the directness of that sort of initiative.
And you are encouraged to tell me what you think is worth my time writing and your time reading!
Aha, Mr Roberts -- classic Aristitolean deflection. I salute you!
Your opening gambit is challenging. Can we envision a form of federal financial support that would result in improved education for our youth? It is not as if many people have ignored this proposal before.
So I will accept your invitation to examine subjects that would challenge you and your readers alike, but not on the pages of your discussion group: it would bore some of your readers and irritate most of the rest.
You have my email address. If you would like to engage me, feel free to write. Fred
I can't match up your email to your name of Flier.
My email is robertdavidn@gmail.com
I applaud your willingness to offer your email, but I do think it would be best to have an open conversation, as I noted above.
I encourage you to engage openly. Let us all do so. Discussion of such important issues ought not be debates in which one, or the other, can declare a win. They are opportunities for us to brainstorm and, at best, pick a bit from your thoughts and Mr. Roberts' and mine and others and, if we are truly fortunate, forge some new idea that will help improve society.
I hope you are right that it will eventually be overturned! The Supreme Court is sick.
I get your question now. It's even harder to answer than my initial take on it. We can easily agree on your first scenario. I would disagree with the premise of your third scenario, although I'm well aware that others would agree with it.
So I find myself somewhere in the second scenario where it is a matter of balancing the moral and the material. And if I saw data that indicated that policies were doing a lot of material harm, however measured, with little to show for it, then yes I'd hope that I'd readily change my mind. The measurement would be really challenging!
Thanks for stretching my thinking!
I am not well versed or read in this topic. From what I think "I k ow" is that we spend more and more money on education in disadvantaged and poor socioeconomic areas and again it seems like this isn't changing things for the better. This could all be propagated lies of course.
I guess my only other curiosity in this ...what about the American Indian kids left behind? The Hispanic kids left behind? I again could be wrong but this seems like the focus of African American kids and Asian American kids...I feel like it's a turf war. It boggles my mind.
I recognize that where you live, your social circumstances, etc will affect your life. Maybe we should be looking farther upstream to how the family unit in certain groups is wholly broken? Maybe even white families as well. If we foster education as a goal from the whole family unit, would be get kids earlier into education avoiding the need for "special treatment" (affirmative action)?
I think earlier intervention is essential, and I think the intervention needs to be direct financial support for parents well up the income ladder. America is an outlier among wealthy nations in terms of child support. Such a policy would be disproportionately beneficial to families of color, but has the virtue of not being aimed at race.
I see that. Wondering how we could ever keep the corruption out of this. I know a GF of a friend...who took in foster kids...and spent the money on herself and not the kids. This may be the exception. But the everything free for me aspect makes me skeptical.
Reading John McWhorter's response..."School funding cannot explain the poor performance of central-city black youth. For example, let’s look at five cities where blacks are the largest share of the population: Detroit, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Philadelphia. Across these cities, only 25% and 28% of black fourth graders are reading and doing math, respectively, at grade level. These rates are about half the national black rate and one-third the national white rate. However, more school funding will probably make little difference, since these five cities already have some of the highest per pupil expenditures among the 100 largest US school districts."
I agree.
It's not money, it's how it is spent.
Very well said.
Whatever the merits of “affirmation action”, whether through quotas or “plus factors”, did the court address the universities’ opinion that the racial diversity of a student body is something that they should be allowed to pursue?
My understanding is that many colleges and universities use race and a number of other demographic characteristics (eg gender; state and country of residence) to create a diverse student body that reflects different experiences and viewpoints. If these demographic goals are errant shortcuts to that objective then it seems that is the college’s business for better or for worse. It is not the court’s business unless such policies can be shown to be discriminatory in nature.
Does favoring a kid from Montana to make sure that all 50 states are represented “discriminate” against a kid from Massacheusetts? Etc.
Sorry for the delay, I just to reading this very interesting post. As is often the case, no one has it all right or all wrong. Let me start by saying we should not go on ignoring the horrific legacy of institutionalized slavery and discrimination. I applaud the intent behind affirmative action and we must find ways to help those whose lives today are still impacted by the long-term legacy of the nation's sins. I did, however, always think that affirmative action was flawed, because it is based on racism. It called for selecting students based on racial characteristics. If racism is wrong, it is wrong no matter who is practicing it. I feel the same way about the death penalty. If killing is wrong, it cannot be right just because it is sanctioned by the state. In both cases, we must seek out better solutions that are morally consistent with the notion that Racism/Murder are wrong.
Furthermore, there certainly are downsides to affirmative action as it has existed. A friend in high school was admitted to an Ivy League college solely because he is black, despite being woefully underqualified. He should have failed but Cornell somehow handed him a degree after 4 years. Armed with that degree, he applied to Georgetown Law and was accepted and later graduated on time. Of course, he was unable to pass the bar and finally took a position as a janitor in a public school system. I suspect he was not the only one to suffer harsh disillusionment at the hands of affirmative action, which failed him miserably. He was not stupid. He could have gone to another college and been trained for any number of other jobs, instead of being crushed by a well-intentioned but ill-planned system.
I think the recent ruling presents an opportunity for American institutions and society writ large. What we have now is a new blank slate, free of affirmative action, on which to design and implement new programs that look at the roots, not the buds. The roots are the elementary schools and neighborhoods that, left alone on their current course, will not improve lives. We must teach the children and, in doing so, seek out and support those who should be going to college and seek out and support those who should not. I live in a community full of NYC first responders and trades workers and they own their homes and many will be sending their kids to college. We should support those who can step into those roles as much as the college-bound. If the Harvards and UNCs of the world really want to do good, not just polish their images, invest in those communities that need help. Surely, there must be ways to do this without employing racism.
David, I just finished reading all the comments to date (and inserting my own). Bravo for putting this discussion out there. It needs to take place. Better solutions need to be found to some very, very deep problems.
Thanks Josh and thanks for all your comments, which added a lot to the discussion.
Love the idea of taking a red pencil to Thomas! Would argue, though--against several of the comments here--that removing racial consideration via AA does NOT result in eliminating racial biases in deliberations. It leaves behind the biases that are “baked into” history, values, and consciousness. AA counterbalances those “invisible” biases, which actually operated as affirmative action for white males throughout history.
Yahoo News reposts a clarification of Justice Jackson's assertion regarding survival rates for black and white children treated by white physicians. The accuracy of the statistic is questionable.
<https://news.yahoo.com/justice-ketanji-jacksons-faulty-claim-215214348.html>
Flier,
This was the quote from Jackson:
"For high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live, and not die.”
It seemed then and seems now obvious she was referring to infant mortality. I don't know how anyone could interpret it any other way.
The math dictates that actually doubling survival would mean that, currently, survival with white doctors delivering black babies would have to be under 50%. That's obviously the wrong inference.
That was the inference I drew. If it is wrong, I would appreciate clarification regarding the correct way to read the statement.
I agree she is talking about infant mortality: I misspoke when I wrote "children."