Affirmative Action

[uppi]

The only thing this study shows is that there is discrimination based on names. It has been shown that this also happens, when "race" is not an issue. A while ago, I read about a study that showed that teachers grade essays of children differently depending on whether the name of the child is favorable or unfavorable. And in that study the unfavorable names where not linked to ethnicity or "race".

The study discussed here fails to provide evidence for the source of the stereotypes. Although it might be possible that the discrimination happened, because the names were associated with black people, it is also possible that the socioeconomic association or something else was the deciding factor. As the latter has been shown to occur, we cannot assume the former without further evidence.

So the study is ill suited to show that discrimination happens based solely on skin color.

 

[luiz]

Yes, I understand that that's what you want tested, and I understand that this wasn't tested. As you say, the "black" names are biased toward the low end of the socioeconomic spectrum. But what are you actually saying here? That employers are thinking:

1) "Jamal" is on the low end of the socio-economic spectrum
2) People on the low end of the socio-economic spectrum usually have poor qualifications and weak employment histories
3) I don't want someone with poor qualifications and weak a employment history to work for me
4) I won't hire anyone named "Jamal"

But the employer already has Jamal's CV right in front of him, staring him in the face. To see his qualifications, he has to look 10cm down the page. To see his employment history, he has to look 20cm down the page. Hell, to see his socioeconomic background, they only have to look at the 2nd line underneath his name: his address! Are you trying to tell me that employers, as a group, are so stupid and lazy that they won't even read a candidate's CV to find out what their actual education or work experience is? That they would, instead, make a series of assumptions and leaps of faith, rather than glancing down a few inches to find out the facts?

Look, if employers always chose candidates based exclusively on CVs we would not be having this discussion, because there wouldn't even be the hypothesis of racial discrimination. What you seem to be saying is that employers will act with perfect rationality when choosing a candidate, except if the candidate happens to be black. What I'm saying is that there all sorts of "non-technical" issues that are taken into consideration, due to a number of factors, such as names, appearance, voice tone, etc. What I'm saying is that this study did not demonstrate its goal, which is that racial discrimination is playing a big role. How could it, if it's focused on a narrow subset of the black population?

If that's what you're saying, then why on earth are you so desperate to preserve this crazy, illogical and economically inefficient method of allocating labour? Surely we need a better way. Perhaps points-based AA is merely ironing out the inefficiencies in the way we allocate labour.

I don't view it as a "system of labor allocation", I view at as people hiring who they like. I don't think it's possible to create a system of labor allocation.

Furthermore, I think bringing race into everything is counterproductive and perpetuates racism instead of fighting it. I also think that awarding a few extra points to people based on their race will only help the already most succesful elements of that race, to the expense of others who are blameless of whatever ill is trying to be corrected. It's a counterproductive, racialist piece of social engineering that can produce no good.

And no, I don't expect you to agree with this solution. But if you want me to believe that employers completely ignore what's written in front of them in Jamal's actual CV and instead concoct a fictional, stereotypical view of what someone with the same socioeconomic background as "Jamal" may hypothetically have on his CV in their own heads, then I do expect you to come up with some evidence for it. Because I simply don't have such a dim view of business owners as you In short, I don't find your theory, that employers aren't racist, but merely stupid, lazy, and prejudiced in a slightly less reprehensible way, as evidence that we should ditch AA. On the contrary, we need to ramp it up!

Did you know that a person's height is also correlated with job prospects and income?

Anyway, here's what really happens: it's not that the employer will ignore whatever is on Jamal's CV and focus on his name. It's just that his name will essentially be a negative point in his CV, because it's associated with coming from a poor household, with parents who probably didn't emphasize education all that much. So the employer could still hire Jamal, but will prefer an alternative if a viable alternative exists.

I don't think we can, or should, create social engineering solutions for all possible sub-conscious associations that might interfer with choosing a candidate.

 

[Formaldehyde]

My brother, like my father and grandfather, is named after Andrew Jackson because my great great great grandmother was his niece. As a result, many people think he is black when he shows up for job interviews. Who knows how many decided not to interview him on that basis alone.

 

[Mise]

What I'm saying is that there all sorts of "non-technical" issues that are taken into consideration, due to a number of factors, such as names, appearance, voice tone, etc.

<...>

Did you know that a person's height is also correlated with job prospects and income?

Anyway, here's what really happens: it's not that the employer will ignore whatever is on Jamal's CV and focus on his name. It's just that his name will essentially be a negative point in his CV, because it's associated with coming from a poor household, with parents who probably didn't emphasize education all that much. So the employer could still hire Jamal, but will prefer an alternative if a viable alternative exists.

Ahh, it's so clear to me now! What really happens isn't that some employers are racist -- of course not! Instead, they are "name-ist", poverty-ist, height-ist, bald-ist, accent-ist and so on - but not racist. Why, racism is the very last thing that could possibly explain those results...

This is exactly the problem - you are so quick to assume that it is merely the "poverty" of the name, and not the "blackness" of the name. You can accept that discrimination based on attractiveness, "poor-sounding" names, height, gender, baldness, accents, acne, speech impediments, clothing, sports ability, musical ability and so on exist and are the cause of any difficulty that "Jamal" faces when he tries to enter the labour market. But you can't accept from this data, or from the myriad other sets of data, that discrimination based on race is the cause.

As I said before, the difficulty in social studies is that there are always confounds that critics can pick out and use to undermine the broader conclusions of the report. You look at this study and criticise the names that they chose -- Jamal, Tyone and Latoya aren't "black" names at all, they're just "poor" names. You could look at other audit studies, in which real people with the same relevant backgrounds, but one is black and one is white, are sent to interviews, apply for health services, sent to banks to apply for credit, and so on. But you would point out that the bank tellers/employers/etc "merely" assumed that black people are poorer and thus are less appropriate for the job or for credit, whereas white people are on average richer and so the perception that they are richer, better educated, etc is responsible for white candidates having an easier time getting jobs and credit. Leaving aside for a moment that this is pretty much the definition of prejudice and racial discrimination, I'm sure you could do this for every audit study and controlled experiment ever conducted -- they don't control for the myriad other differences between candidates (e.g. height), nor do they rule out that the prejudice is not based on race, but on the perception among interviewers (despite all evidence presented to the interviewer about the socioeconmic background of the specific candidate) that race is a good indicator of socioeconomic background, or some other variable that you think is more important.

You could move on to statistical studies, which show that, controlling for confounding variables A through W, black men have less access to employment than white men -- but point out that confounds X, Y and Z were not controlled for and are, of course, the true source of the difference. I could show you another study, which controls for A through M and R through Z -- which you would of course criticise for not controlling for N through P (and I would have to admit that methodological differences and statistical rigour preclude joining the two studies to crudely conclude that they jointly cover all controls). I could show you a dozen more statistical studies, which, as is natural in social studies, can't control for every confounding variable -- and you would of course conclude that the real source of discrimination is one of the variables that wasn't controlled for.

You could continue to do this for every single study on racial discrimination ever produced. And you could do it for every single study on racial discrimination that ever will be produced. You could dedicate your life to pointing out the flaws and oversights and confounds and biases in every racial discrimination study there is. You could even conduct your own studies (replete with their own flaws and oversights and confounds and biases), that show that racism doesn't exist, and nobody ever uses race to eliminate potential candidates from hiring decisions. Hell, you could even join one of the many well-funded "think tanks" and other organisations that exist solely to spread FUD over the issue of race, just as they exist for every issue from global warming to the holocaust to globalisation.

But at some point, you have to ask yourself: isn't it simply more likely that racism is still an issue in the West? That "some employers discriminate based on race" is the hypothesis with the greater explanatory power? The one single hypothesis that can explain all those studies?

At some point, you just have to think, "maybe black people do face problems that I don't face...".

 

[luiz]

Mise, you misunderstood me.

I don't disagree that the possibility that black people face discrimination in the job market and elsewhere is a very big one. I disagree that this and analogous studies have been able to measure it (or even demonstrate it), I disagree that it is a determining factor and, above all, I disagree with proposed remedies. I have here focused on criticising this study, and many other similar and worse studies, that usually assume that because black wages are in average lower than white wages, racial discrimination was proven. That sort of logic is an insult to anyone with a brain. But there are many other objections far beyond questioning the validity of the studies (which are valid questionings!).

Race-based policies are a serious business, that can and do generate collateral effects, and necessarily produce injustices and distortions. To justify the implementation of race-based policies, policy-makers would have to:

a) Prove that racial discrimination exists and is significant;
b) Reasonably quantify it;
c) Prove that the positive effects of the race-based policies would outweight the negative ones.

We're stuck at "a". Even if, for the sake of the argument, we are to assume that racial discrimination is significant and more serious than other kinds of discrimination (which do exist and are easier to demonstrate), then we would still have to prove that race-based AA is worth the cost. And this will never happen, because it clearly isn't.

Lets think for a moment about the effects of a point-based, racial AA system, on say universities and civil service. What are the effects? Clearly, the poorest segment of the black population won't benefit at all, as a few extra points won't make them competitive. The most talented segment of the population won't need it either, because they already get accepted to whatever they want. The benefit will fall upon a competitive segment, that was left out by a few points. So this small segment will get in at the expense of an equally small, and marginally more qualified, non-black segment. This will have absolutely no effect on the most vulnerable segments, and will in no way lead to less racism. On the contrary, the only tangible effect here is an injustice against the non-black segment that was left out by a few unearned points, which can only lead to resentment.

Racial-AA was never supposed to end racism. If we think for a sencond about it, we see that indeed it can't. It was based on the evil idea that the "oppressed races" must have their "elite leaders", which will in turn help "their people" advance. That's of course total garbage; races don't have leaders and nobody needs them to advance. At any rate, there already is a black elite in the US and in all countries with a sizeable black population.

Any rigorous analysis of race-based policies will conclude they are a failure. Several minority groups, which in the not-so-distant past faced harsh discrimination, were able to reach if not surpass the majority level of prosperity without any racial bonus.

So why should we adopt a system that furthers the division of society on races, necessarily leads to injustices, fuels racial resentment and an idea of "racial struggle", has failed on a global scale and is on top of all unnecessary?

 

[Mise]

I wonder why you don't apply the same level of healthy scepticism to your own assertions... "What are the effects?" Well, you make some claims, but where's the evidence for that? On the contrary, I remember reading a report by the Department for Work and Pensions a few years ago saying that large companies with HR policies designed to level the playing field on race didn't show any bias in recruiting when tested for racial discrimination, but companies with no HR policies on race did show bias in their recruitment... It doesn't seem at all far fetched that HR policies designed to ensure that recruitment managers ignore race do, in fact, result in recruitment managers ignoring race. I don't see how this (and I'm sure if I could be bothered to google it, I'd find other studies reporting similar things) is consistent with your belief that all race-based policies are unmitigated failures. Perhaps there is no analysis rigorous enough to satisfy you...

 

[luiz]

Instructing HR recruiters to ignore race seems pretty good to me... it's not a race-based policy, it's the negation of a race-based policy.

Assigning an arbitrary number of extra points for people arbitrarily classified as a certain race, OTOH, sounds like a terrible idea.

 

[Mise]

But your objections would still be relevant for policies that ensure that recruiters ignore race... The poorest segment won't be helped at all, just as before, and the policy still won't reduce racism -- as you claimed earlier, people still associate black names with being less suitable for employment, in spite of the evidence presented 10cm under their noses. It's also far from a universal solution - how do you do it in organisations or companies where the person's first and only interaction is face-to-face?

Finally, the idea that a white person who is "marginally more qualified" will be left out is pure fiction. There is simply no such thing as "marginally more qualified". How do you even measure what "marginally more qualified" means? The error margin on whatever metric you use is going to envelop pretty much everyone who falls short of entry - black, white, gay, female, everyone. No two candidates are ever identical apart from one thing - candidates can be different on any number of criteria that "pretty much balance out" in the end. As JR said in the other thread, when you get two people who are pretty much as qualified and suitable for a position as each other, you use your discretion. Instead of saying, "well, I may as well pick the one who supports the same football team as me", they say, "well, I may as well help even out our statistics on ethnic diversity". Whether or not you agree that evening out the organisation's statistics on ethnic diversity is a valid goal, you must admit that it is no less valid than picking someone who happened to support Arsenal.

 

[Millman]

Did you ever consider asking around to determine who the company is most likely to hire. You should also ask for a tour of the company before you apply there to see their dress attire and what they look like.

And I'm not posting out of ignorance. What could help your situation is a gov. credit score. In fact there's nothing in the constitution that prohibitis this. Actually, the 'due process' clause would encourage such a thing.

It could determine how well you act as a citizen and/or determine if the authorities are judging you fairly/unfairly.

We don't pour billions of $ into science for no reasong.

 

[luiz]

But your objections would still be relevant for policies that ensure that recruiters ignore race... The poorest segment won't be helped at all, just as before, and the policy still won't reduce racism -- as you claimed earlier, people still associate black names with being less suitable for employment, in spite of the evidence presented 10cm under their noses. It's also far from a universal solution - how do you do it in organisations or companies where the person's first and only interaction is face-to-face?

Finally, the idea that a white person who is "marginally more qualified" will be left out is pure fiction. There is simply no such thing as "marginally more qualified". How do you even measure what "marginally more qualified" means? The error margin on whatever metric you use is going to envelop pretty much everyone who falls short of entry - black, white, gay, female, everyone. No two candidates are ever identical apart from one thing - candidates can be different on any number of criteria that "pretty much balance out" in the end. As JR said in the other thread, when you get two people who are pretty much as qualified and suitable for a position as each other, you use your discretion. Instead of saying, "well, I may as well pick the one who supports the same football team as me", they say, "well, I may as well help even out our statistics on ethnic diversity". Whether or not you agree that evening out the organisation's statistics on ethnic diversity is a valid goal, you must admit that it is no less valid than picking someone who happened to support Arsenal.

But a hiring policy is not supposed to cure racism! It can't and it won't.

And while it's true that for regular jobs there may be no such thing as "marginally more qualified", for universities or civil service, usually objective criteria are employed, and therefore there is such thing as marginally more qualified. In Brazil, all admissions for universities and civil service are exclusively based on test scores, and the people correcting the tests don't know the name or identity of the person who took the tests, so there can be no discrimination of any kind. Or rather, there wans't, until they imposed racial quotas. Now more qualified candidates are rejected because of the color of their skin all the time, sometimes even when they scored nearly twice as much as someone who got in through a quota.

Finally, if a private company wants to institute an "eskimo-only" hiring policy, that's fine with me (I don't think it's fine, but I don't think they shouldn't be able to do it either). What I don't want is the government imposing racial classifications down society's throat, and arbitrating different values and points for the "different races".

 

[warpus]

Instructing HR recruiters to ignore race seems pretty good to me... it's not a race-based policy, it's the negation of a race-based policy.

Assigning an arbitrary number of extra points for people arbitrarily classified as a certain race, OTOH, sounds like a terrible idea.

I agree.

Do it based on socioeconomic status, or don't do it at all.

 

[Cutlass]

I agree.

Do it based on socioeconomic status, or don't do it at all.

That doesn't solve the problem though. The problem is at heart racism and racial discrimination. If you have policies based solely on socioeconomic status, then you do not address the problems blacks face for no other reason than that they are black.

 

[warpus]

That doesn't solve the problem though. The problem is at heart racism and racial discrimination. If you have policies based solely on socioeconomic status, then you do not address the problems blacks face for no other reason than that they are black.

You can't change racist attitudes by institutional racism; it will only make things worse.

If the problem you're trying to solve is racism, the only solution is really better socio-economic mobility, better access to quality education, and time.

AA as it is now provides better socio-economic mobility but it draws more lines between the "races".. So it takes a step forward, but one backwards. My solution is a step forward.. It doesn't address racism - but it doesn't make it worse either.

 

[Cutlass]

You can't change racist attitudes by institutional racism; it will only make things worse.

If the problem you're trying to solve is racism, the only solution is really better socio-economic mobility, better access to quality education, and time.

AA as it is now provides better socio-economic mobility but it draws more lines between the "races".. So it takes a step forward, but one backwards. My solution is a step forward.. It doesn't address racism - but it doesn't make it worse either.

It is a strawman, not a reality, to claim that it institutionalizes racism. It does nothing of the sort. It is a strawman to claim that it is reverse racism. It is not racism in any way, shape, or form. These things are not real. These things are rhetorical devices to gain control of the debate for the purpose of continuing the policies of racial segregation.

What ends racism is for people to know one another, to live near each other, to work and play together, to be a part of the same community, and so the people realize that everyone really is alike. And the only way to get there is to forcibly put an end to the racially based segregation of jobs, living accommodations, and education that keep people apart in all other aspects of their lives. So long as the policies are continuing the segregation, then the racism will persist. They are 2 sides of the same coin.

Now AA is an ugly way of addressing this, and for the most part AA has only ever been used very weakly in the US. But it does address the core of the issue, which is integration. Separate but equal is never equal. Racism will not end so long as people can get away with forcing segregation.

What you have to understand is that people are now treated unequally. None of these policies have ever, or will ever, give black people superior opportunities or access than white people. It is just another strawman to make that claim. All AA has ever done or tried to do is give equal access so that people can try to get equal results.

A socioeconomic based set of preferences will benefit whites more than blacks. And so it will not solve the core problem, which is that blacks are still somewhat segregated.

By segregating out certain peoples, what is accomplished is to reduce the competition for the better opportunities. And by doing that, inferior people can rise to the top easier. End segregation, end racism, and only then can the best people for any given job be the ones who get the jobs. Only then do we have a meritocracy. Only then do we get the maximum economic potential of all people.

 

[innonimatu]

Unsurprising, I'm with Luiz on the issue of racism and "affirmative action" again. The underlying problem, whenever I see this AA stuff, always turns out to be socioeconomic, and not one of skin color. Selectively giving benefits to particular groups based on race will only make others resentful and create racism, because AA is itself a racist policy!

So, target the entire socioeconomically disadvantaged group for help. This is probably where I'll radically depart from Luiz's stance. Even within the present capitalist system I think that merely increasing again spending on social programs, including free and inclusive education (same funding to all schools, no socioeconomic discrimination meaning possibly no independent private schools until the problem is solved), and financing it all with a very progressive income tax structure as it happened in the past, is the simplest policy to address this problem with some effectiveness. The "social-democratic solution", if you will.
And not just education for the children, but higher incomes to their families too: if you want to turn poor people into "middle-class people", start by letting them have all the middle-class toys... meaning both creating jobs and forcing a higher minimum wage, even if those jobs and not economically "profitable" (they don't have to be "unproductive" jobs, mind you, just jobs doing stuff that could be imported cheaper, for example, or not allowing companies to squeeze their workers for profits so much), or distributing some form of "minimum income" to them. If everything went right their children would then have a better environment to grow up in, better success in their careers, and the need for jobs policies or subsidies would be reduced.

 

[innonimatu]

It is a strawman, not a reality, to claim that it institutionalizes racism. It does nothing of the sort. It is a strawman to claim that it is reverse racism. It is not racism in any way, shape, or form. These things are not real. These things are rhetorical devices to gain control of the debate for the purpose of continuing the policies of racial segregation.

What ends racism is for people to know one another, to live near each other, to work and play together, to be a part of the same community, and so the people realize that everyone really is alike. And the only way to get there is to forcibly put an end to the racially based segregation of jobs, living accommodations, and education that keep people apart in all other aspects of their lives. So long as the policies are continuing the segregation, then the racism will persist. They are 2 sides of the same coin.

But they are not alike! You are missing the crux of the issue: they are different because they come from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Not because they have different skin colors, or different remote ancestries. Those people are not like Eddie Murphy in "Trading Places" (damn, I'm showing how old I am!), they have different skills and life strategies because they have lived in different environments and adaptation cannot be forced overnight. Put them together by force and what will come out immediately is not their similarity, but their differences! And, because life is more tragedy than comedy, resentment from the "betters" against the "disadvantaged" they're being forced to work with. And against "affirmative action". You're preparing ground that will be ripe for the development of racism!
At the same time you also get resentment among the "disadvantaged", because the white poor rednecks see the poor blacks (for example) getting advantages over them opportunities they don't get.

Great policy indeed: you manage to screw up things at both ends! It indeed there is racism, and not just socioeconomic discrimination, then this racial affirmative action may have a use. Otherwise it is only a way to create racism. It doesn't even alleviate the real problem of socioeconomic discrimination, because you'll be deliberately lifting some people (based on racial criteria) and letting others fall down to take their places - the economic structure, income distribution among the population, etc doesn't get changed, only some places of some individuals are traded!

 

[Mise]

They're not different at all. But they are treated differently because they have different skin colours... If you're trying to argue that black people aren't treated differently because of their skin colour, then, well, I don't know what to say to you. Racism still exists, and is still a problem. Whether or not you agree with the solution, you can't have this discussion if you don't even agree that there is a problem.

But a hiring policy is not supposed to cure racism! It can't and it won't.

So why do you object to AA on the grounds that it won't cure racism then If it can't and won't cure racism -- and in fact, it's not supposed to cure racism -- then what does it matter that it doesn't, in fact, cure racism?

I don't think anyone ever claimed that AA was supposed to "cure racism"... That's just something you've ascribed to the policy in order to criticise it. But, as you've admitted, it can be ascribed to any hiring policy... The intent of AA is simply to level the playing field between candidates of different races.

And while it's true that for regular jobs there may be no such thing as "marginally more qualified", for universities or civil service, usually objective criteria are employed, and therefore there is such thing as marginally more qualified. In Brazil, all admissions for universities and civil service are exclusively based on test scores, and the people correcting the tests don't know the name or identity of the person who took the tests, so there can be no discrimination of any kind. Or rather, there wans't, until they imposed racial quotas. Now more qualified candidates are rejected because of the color of their skin all the time, sometimes even when they scored nearly twice as much as someone who got in through a quota.

So a candidate with 1001 points on a test is "objectively more qualified" than a candidate with 999 points on a test? That's absurd - surely you can see that the error margin in that metric absolutely dwarfs the true difference between the candidates? Nobody can claim that they have an "objective criteria" for employment or university admission, because whatever metric you use absolutely cannot differentiate candidates with such marginal scores on a test. The test itself is fundamentally incapable of differentiating between a bright and promising academic and a guy who crammed for 20 hours a day but has no idea what any of it means, and this is especially true at the undergraduate level. And if, in one year, the test is unusually easy, or there are an unusually high number of bright people in that graduating year, someone could get 20% higher than someone in the previous year and not be admitted, due to nothing more than being born in 1994 instead of 1993. If you have a cold on test day, that could knock 4-5% off your test score (it has to me in the past, I'm sure it's happened to you, too). Is it at all fair to dismiss a marginal candidate because he had the bad luck to be sick on test day?

Brazilian universities might be stupid enough to admit solely based on test scores, but the top universities and business schools in this country aren't. And AFAIK they aren't in America either; universities in America and Britain take a holistic approach to admissions, judging candidates by a broad and subjective range of criteria, instead of the narrow and antiquated focus on a score on a test (a system, incidentally, that we know was historically designed to favour candidates from a higher SES). If universities are solely using test scores as a criteria for entry, then they are no better than admitting marginal candidates based on what football team they support. A 0.5% difference on a test isn't a compelling reason to admit candidate A over candidate B: both candidates are equally qualified.

Of course, you will argue that the line has to be drawn somewhere, and this line will necessarily be arbitrary and unfair to marginal candidates who had a cold on test day. Fine, I agree with that. But I'm not the one who's arguing against AA on the basis that it is arbitrary and unfair to marginal candidates.

 

[luiz]

So why do you object to AA on the grounds that it won't cure racism then If it can't and won't cure racism -- and in fact, it's not supposed to cure racism -- then what does it matter that it doesn't, in fact, cure racism?

I don't think anyone ever claimed that AA was supposed to "cure racism"... That's just something you've ascribed to the policy in order to criticise it. But, as you've admitted, it can be ascribed to any hiring policy... The intent of AA is simply to level the playing field between candidates of different races.

I wasn't criticizing AA for failing to cure racism, as that is indeed not its goal. I was just pointing out that not only is AA powerless to cure racism, it is likely to make it worse. And many people do believe, bizarrely, that AA is an instrument to cure racism.

I was criticizing AA for officializing racial divisions, for assigning arbitrary bonuses to people arbitrarily classified as a certain race, for benefiting better-of members of a "race" at the expense of people from another "race" that are blameless of whatever problem is trying to be corrected, and for generally being a huge failure worldwide.

So a candidate with 1001 points on a test is "objectively more qualified" than a candidate with 999 points on a test? That's absurd - surely you can see that the error margin in that metric absolutely dwarfs the true difference between the candidates? Nobody can claim that they have an "objective criteria" for employment or university admission, because whatever metric you use absolutely cannot differentiate candidates with such marginal scores on a test. The test itself is fundamentally incapable of differentiating between a bright and promising academic and a guy who crammed for 20 hours a day but has no idea what any of it means, and this is especially true at the undergraduate level. And if, in one year, the test is unusually easy, or there are an unusually high number of bright people in that graduating year, someone could get 20% higher than someone in the previous year and not be admitted, due to nothing more than being born in 1994 instead of 1993. If you have a cold on test day, that could knock 4-5% off your test score (it has to me in the past, I'm sure it's happened to you, too). Is it at all fair to dismiss a marginal candidate because he had the bad luck to be sick on test day?

Modern admission tests are designed to be more about logic and general intellectual skills than memory. So a guy who crammed 20 hours a day won't beat a bright academic, if he isn't bright himself.

That said, of course there is an "error margin", and of course it's impossible to perfectly rank candidates. But here's the thing, when you adopt an objective, impersonal criteria like test scores, you are treating everyone equally. Everyone can catch a cold or a have a bad day, poor and rich and black and white alike. Everyone can study hard to overcome their own intellectual limitations. When you assign an arbitrary bonus for people arbitrarily classified as being of a certain race, you destroy that equality. How the hell can we reach the conclusion that being "black" (whatever the hell that means) is worth 5 or 10 extra points? How can you equate being black with getting a couple of questions right? How is that fair, or even logical?

It's not only unfair but thoroughly stupid.

Brazilian universities might be stupid enough to admit solely based on test scores, but the top universities and business schools in this country aren't. And AFAIK they aren't in America either; universities in America and Britain take a holistic approach to admissions, judging candidates by a broad and subjective range of criteria, instead of the narrow and antiquated focus on a score on a test (a system, incidentally, that we know was historically designed to favour candidates from a higher SES).

It's the other way around, obviously. When decades ago Brazilian universities used a "holistic" approach based on "subjective criteria", they were accused of favoring the upper classes. College professors come from the upper classes and as such could be inclined to benefit those like them, who live next to them and go to school with their kids. And this of course did happen, universities were essentially a country club for the graduates of a handful of elite schools. So the government imposed an impersonal system, based exclusively on the scores of many tests, taken at multiple and spread out days (so if you have one bad day or a cold your chances aren't ruined), where the people correcting the tests don't know the name or background of the person who took the test. The result was a great democratization of university access, finally bright people from a poor background could get in, even if obviously they still had a big disadvantage of coming from crappy public schools. The same system applies for all the civil service, so no discrimination happens or is even possible.

It's a completely color-blind, wealth-blind system. But the racialists still saw the need to create racial quotas.

If universities are solely using test scores as a criteria for entry, then they are no better than admitting marginal candidates based on what football team they support. A 0.5% difference on a test isn't a compelling reason to admit candidate A over candidate B: both candidates are equally qualified.

Of course, you will argue that the line has to be drawn somewhere, and this line will necessarily be arbitrary and unfair to marginal candidates who had a cold on test day. Fine, I agree with that. But I'm not the one who's arguing against AA on the basis that it is arbitrary and unfair to marginal candidates.

The difference is one system is fair and the other isn't. It's one thing to be passed over because a guy was a littler bit better than you at a test. Everyone accepts that as fair. In school the difference between failing a year and advancing can be a 1% test score. The difference between legally drinking and not can be 1 day. You always have to draw the line, and it's much better to draw it over objective, equal for everyone criteria than idiotic divisive and subjective garbage like skin color.

So lets recap all the arguments against race-based AA:

- It officializes racial divisions;
- It leads to a notion of "racial struggle" and fuels racial resentment (and thus racism);
- The classification of people by race is necessarily arbitrary, inaccurate and unfair;
- The benefit assigned for belonging to a certain race is necessarily arbitrary and unfair;
- It leads to blameless people being harmed;
- It overwhelmingly benefits the privileged segment of a "race" (who don't need help to being with) and does nothing to help the poorer segments;
- It is a failure on a global scale;
- It is unnecessary (see: minorities who were previously harshly discriminated against reaching or surpassing majority levels of prosperity without AA. See: blacks of recent African immigrant origin outperforming whites at university admissions).

And the benefits of race-based AA are... uh... yeah.

 

[Cutlass]

But they are not alike! You are missing the crux of the issue: they are different because they come from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Not because they have different skin colors, or different remote ancestries. Those people are not like Eddie Murphy in "Trading Places" (damn, I'm showing how old I am!), they have different skills and life strategies because they have lived in different environments and adaptation cannot be forced overnight. Put them together by force and what will come out immediately is not their similarity, but their differences! And, because life is more tragedy than comedy, resentment from the "betters" against the "disadvantaged" they're being forced to work with. And against "affirmative action". You're preparing ground that will be ripe for the development of racism!
At the same time you also get resentment among the "disadvantaged", because the white poor rednecks see the poor blacks (for example) getting advantages over them opportunities they don't get.

Great policy indeed: you manage to screw up things at both ends! It indeed there is racism, and not just socioeconomic discrimination, then this racial affirmative action may have a use. Otherwise it is only a way to create racism. It doesn't even alleviate the real problem of socioeconomic discrimination, because you'll be deliberately lifting some people (based on racial criteria) and letting others fall down to take their places - the economic structure, income distribution among the population, etc doesn't get changed, only some places of some individuals are traded!

Except that they fundamentally are alike. The cultural differences come from the segregation, not from any differences of the people. Something like 1/3 of black Americans have overcome the segregation and live lives fundamentally indistinguishable from the lives of white Americans. Except that they are still targeted for racism in employment and law enforcement. There isn't anything different about these people.

They are only different when they are held segregated. It is a cultural artifact of the policies that are intended to prevent blacks from having full equality. Individuals can and do overcome it every day. If we could only end those external pressures that are the root causes of the difference, then it wouldn't be long before the socioeconomic status of all blacks was roughly similar to that of all whites.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I think this discussion needs some systematization. I'll have a go at it on the way through my post.

@Mise
I in my last post was so agitated because the direct point of discussion at this point was not if there is racism in its own right (even though luiz earlier claimed that the effect of racism was no statistically significant on success in life). It was if the study of yours can actually prove so. And - for the reasons which have already been explained to death - it can't. And that is just an objective fact.

That it can also not rule out that racism occurs is an entirely different matter.

But you to me seemed to be absolutely unwilling to accept this basic fact, but instead preferred to put assumptions about the implications of this fact in my mouth (but supposedly without intending, so I apologize for this accusation). The assumption that there was no racism in its own right, which I have never made, or at least never intended to make. I merely wondered about the actual significant of racism when socio-economic factors are controlled for, because if known, this without a doubt will be of strong importance.

But to get back to the actual original debate - the merits of racial AA - then the mere notion that racism somehow plays a role in the destiny of minority races can IMO not possibly be enough to justify AA. Actually, scrap the IMO. I am sure we can also establish that as another fact. For the simple reason, that AA does has undesired effects. Which means, that to justify AA, it is not only enough to establish that there is somehow racism beyond socio-economic factors (which again I don't question), it is not only enough to establish that AA somehow softens the effect of this racism, it must also be established that the extend to which AA does so weights greater than the extend of AA's undesired effects. And this is what I base my argument on.

Which then compromised goes like this:
- It is entirely based on chance if AA does actually help a person to a smaller or equal extend than to which he or she actually was hindered by racism, or if it gives such an individual simply an unfair advantage. Which means: It is a shot in the dark.
- As luiz does not get tired to state: AA is predesignated to help this share of a race which requires it the least, because it naturally can only benefit those which already without AA have some sort of perspective for whatever they are applying. Which means: It is not only a shot in the dark, it is a short in the dark which is aimed at where it is needed the least.
- At the same time, people of other races, be it a majority race like whites or as the USA proves a minority race like Asian, suffer for it. Which means: It backfires, and the people taking the hit - unless you got lucky and hit a racist - don't deserve it.
- And at last, what makes AA necessary in the first place, racism, is quit potentially fueled by this policy of racial discrimination. Which means: AA helps the source of the evil it intends to fight.

In conclusion: AA is a shot in the dark, that aims at the wrong direction, backfires at noninvolved and alleviates the underlying issue.

And that is why I strongly believe, that AA is in its inherent quality absolutely inadequate to counter-balance racism in an agreeable fashion.

I can already smell how one may answer, that I can not offer hard facts. That is true, but neither can the other side. There is no factual argumentation for how AA would not be inadequate. It simply was decided to assume so. What I however can provide are undeniable inherent qualities of AA (except the last one, I can see a case for denying it, though I think it would be a very hard one) which strongly suggest that AA is not adequate. And in the absence of facts, the suggestions of those qualities is the most reasonable criteria left.

And now add the fact, that orientating on socio-economic criteria alone will not carry any of the drawbacks of AA (edit: except the backfiring, but in this case most people will be understanding), but in deed will have the virtue to - in contrast to AA - help the weakest of a discriminated race the most and at the same time will still have the virtue of AA, which is to balance the playing field between the races - because socio-economic factors have a bias for discriminated races.
Then I think the choice is very clear.

To conclude otherwise, does IMO only makes sense, if one judges racism to be so strong in its own right - independent of socio-economic factors - that it overshadows all the mentioned drawbacks of AA and makes an orientation on socio-economic factors insufficient.

But that has to be actually demonstrated.

That policy makers did not care to do so and that hence AA is already an established fact, does naturally not make a difference in that regard. It just means that policy makers felt like not thinking too hard, and hence AA should be terminated and be replaced by focusing on socio-economic factors until this hypothetical and for AA sufficient significance of racism (which is not sufficiently covered by orientation on socio-economic factors through overlap) is established.

And at last, I don't think that this would succeed. And that is not just a feeling. It starts with the mysterious fact, that this has not happened yet. And it further on is based on all I know about human nature and modern societies. Luiz even claims to have validated that the opposite is true and maybe he will still come forth with more substance.