quote:Out of sheer curiousity, is anyone here in favor of affirmative action as a means of combating racism?
The opinions I encounter up to this point in my life have been unanimously "No." There were a few dissenters in the two social sciences classes I took a while back, but they couldn't get very specific as to why beyond the standard newspaper hype, and by the end of the discussion became part of the unanimous "no" crowd.
I'm curious to see if anyone does actually view affirmative action as a positive step against racism, and why.
(kmbboots, thanks for your e-mailed response!)
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From kmbboots (posted from an e-mail she sent me, at her request):
quote:One reason is that I think that society as a whole benefits from affirmative action in education. Hiring a woman or a minority professor, for example, gives minority students a role model rather than reinforcing a negative stereotype. It also combats prejudice for white students to have female or minority professors and fellow students. If a student sees only white, male professors and students it is only going to reinforce negative ideas about women and minorities.
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ersomniac, could you post what I emailed to you (or email it back). I,(as usual) forgot to save it. It was pretty much what I had to say. Thanks.
edit: nevermind (you are so way ahead of me today)
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quote:It also combats prejudice for white students to have female or minority professors and fellow students.
In such cases where it is know that the person would not have their position if it were not for their minority status, I wonder how much it combats, and how much it reinforces, such prejudices.
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I don't have time for a really long post at the moment.
But to answer Dags' question in the other thread, I don't believe affirmative action deals with the root causes of racism. Moreover, I am against it in the workplace, and even in education I think it is best to combine it with another measure of socioeconomic status and family history (i.e., is this the first generation (or second) going to college).
However, I support it as one of several measures used to choose among qualified candidates for a school that has far too many qualified candidates for available slots (such as UCLA and the other UC's).
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I don't know how affirmative action would offset racism; I know that I support it as a way to help people who may have suffered from the accumulated cultural weight of racism in America.
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I think that, while it may not be necessary now, it was a decisive and necessary step when first introduced. It's worth remembering that there was a time when universities just didn't hire women. Affirmative action was certainly heavy artillery, but it did break that monolithic defense line - perhaps also by giving people a good excuse. Even a quite liberal hirer might have hesitated to go against social pressure; with affirmative action, he could say it wasn't his fault.
Now that the deadlock is broken and women have a definite and undisputed presence in academia, it might be possible to remove the restriction. In fact, going back to my artillery metaphor, one could argue that the artillery is now shelling the hole in the enemy lines where our own troops are trying to march through. But at the time, yes, it was definitely needed.
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I support the elimination of affirmative action. I also support the elimination of getting into school as a legacy, or because your parents bought a gym, or any other reason than merit. And I support the elimination of discriminatory hiring practices so that employers always hire the most qualified person no matter what the race.
However, as long as those conditions are still lacking, I'll grudgingly accept affirmative action as a useful but potentially harmful method of acclimating society to the acceptance of minorities.
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To take Dag's question a bit futher, I'm wondering if affirmative action actually exacerbates the root causes of racism as it attempts to compensate for the effects of racism.
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quote:It also combats prejudice for white students to have female or minority professors and fellow students.
In such cases where it is know that the person would not have their position if it were not for their minority status, I wonder how much it combats, and how much it reinforces, such prejudices.
An affirmative action program does not inherently mean that every minority professor got their job only because of their minority status. That's an additional assumption that someone would have to make in order to reinforce their prejudices.
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Before this discussion proceeds much farther, we need to define affirmative action. I will list a variety of programs I am familiar with, all of which have been called affirmative action:
1. A requirement that jobs or educational opportunities be advertised in minority-specific media and locations.
2. A requirement that recruiters go to schools w/ a high minority concentration.
3. A requirement that recruiters go to schools w. high minority concentrations in disproportion to the representation of such schools in the recruiting area.
4. A requirement that standardized tests with disparate impact (lower minority scores than majority scores) be curved separately for minorities or otherwise adjusted to account for the difference.
5. A requirement that minorities receive additional points simply for being a minority.
6. A requirement that minority status be used as a tiebreaker between otherwise identical candidates.
7. A requirement that a certain number of percentage of minorities be accepted/hired.
8. The use of race as one factor among many in deciding who to accept.
9. The reduction of minimum standards for minorities.
10. Financial aid available to minority students not available to other students.
11. Incentives not available to other applicants to attract qualified minority applicants.
12. A hard look at criteria that create a disparate impact to see if they are truly related to performance.
13. Requiring a higher level of proof of relatedness for criteria w/ a disparate impact.
14. Special counseling and assistance programs to people several years away from applying only available to minority students.
Also, we need to consider whether college admission should be based solely on some concept of merit. A hard "yes" to that question will require evaluating each of these methods in a different manner than a "no" would.
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quote:To take Dag's question a bit futher, I'm wondering if affirmative action actually exacerbates the root causes of racism as it attempts to compensate for the effects of racism.
Generally, the people I've talked to previously have agreed that it does. I view affirmative action as a way of highlighting the fact that people are NOT equal, and rubbing it in everyone's face.
(Having started the thread, I do have more to say on the subject, but the thread is moving too fast for me to type a lengthy post while I'm trying to work at the same time.)
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quote:An affirmative action program does not inherently mean that every minority professor got their job only because of their minority status. That's an additional assumption that someone would have to make in order to reinforce their prejudices.
I didn't say it was.
But there are situations where a person is giving a position that they would not have received were it not for their minority status. If that is known, would having that person in their position combat prejudices at all? Would it reinforce them at all?
I wasn't speaking of the general case in which it is not known. But Rivka is right -- with some types of AA in place, many people will wonder if a minority member only got their position becuase of AA, somewhat undermining the effects of their accomplisments.
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: ...with some types of AA in place, many people will wonder if a minority member only got their position becuase of AA, somewhat undermining the effects of their accomplisments.
I think that tells you more about people than about affirmative action, though.
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We need to combat racism by saying that some races are more deserving of job and college positions than others.
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quote:I think that tells you more about people than about affirmative action, though.
Perhaps, but it doesn't really matter whose fault it is. I was only addressing the idea that AA effectively combats prejudice. If it doesn't, because of what people are like, then that needs to be taken into account.
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quote:I think that tells you more about people than about affirmative action, though.
Affirmative action is justified, at least in part, by its effect on people, so this doesn't exactly weaken MPH's argument.
In fact, Clarence Thomas spoke extensively about hating people assuming he was in on affirmative action and wouldn't be there without it.
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: But there are situations where a person is giving a position that they would not have received were it not for their minority status.
I think that it gives people a position that they might not have received due to discrimination.
quote: But Rivka is right -- with some types of AA in place, many people will wonder if a minority member only got their position becuase of AA, somewhat undermining the effects of their accomplisments.
I believe that affirmative action is supposed to be used as a tie-breaker more than anything. That is, if Person A and Person B have the same achievements, but A is a white male and B is not, then you should hire B.
Edit: In other words, I agree with twinky. I have problems with affirmative action itself, but the fact that people have misconceptions about it doesn't mean that it's flawed.
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1. A requirement that jobs or educational opportunities be advertised in minority-specific media and locations. No problem.
2. A requirement that recruiters go to schools w/ a high minority concentration. No problem.
3. A requirement that recruiters go to schools w. high minority concentrations in disproportion to the representation of such schools in the recruiting area. Don't like it.
4. A requirement that standardized tests with disparate impact (lower minority scores than majority scores) be curved separately for minorities or otherwise adjusted to account for the difference. Nope. "Standard" means "standard." However, I'm very against using only the results of those scores to determine school funding (different argument)
5. A requirement that minorities receive additional points simply for being a minority. Don't like it.
6. A requirement that minority status be used as a tiebreaker between otherwise identical candidates. Really don't like it.
7. A requirement that a certain number of percentage of minorities be accepted/hired. I can accept this in certain very specific situations, such as a penalty for employers who have been proven to use discrimatory hiring practices, or in situations where it has been shown that belonging to a minority class is somehow essential to the job.
8. The use of race as one factor among many in deciding who to accept. Don't like it.
9. The reduction of minimum standards for minorities. Really, really don't like it, as that mananges to do a disservice for everyone involved.
10. Financial aid available to minority students not available to other students. Not in general purpose aid offerings. I have no problem with specific financial aid packages offered alongside other, similarly restricted offers that seek to benefit a particular class (only for Christians, or only for students seeking degrees in biology, or whatever).
11. Incentives not available to other applicants to attract qualified minority applicants. Again, only in jobs where minority membership is somehow essential to the job. Not a lot of those but I'll concede they exist.
12. A hard look at criteria that create a disparate impact to see if they are truly related to performance. Sure.
13. Requiring a higher level of proof of relatedness for criteria w/ a disparate impact. No.
14. Special counseling and assistance programs to people several years away from applying only available to minority students. I would have no problem making this available to financially needy students, of which minorities may form a alrge part, but not with minority status as a deciding factor. I favor assistance programs to alleviate class inequalities.
This is tricky business...
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quote:I believe that affirmative action is supposed to be used as a tie-breaker more than anything. That is, if Person A and Person B have the same achievements, but A is a white male and B is not, then you should hire B.
Check out the list of affirmative action examples listed by Dag.
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For both admissions and hiring at this university, standards are not lowered for minority students. I would say that of Dagonee's list we employ 1, 2, and 6* (though I would say "policy" rather than "requirement"). 4, 7, and 9 we do not. The rest, I'm not sure. Financial aid is need-based here but there are merit awards as well. These are based on "whatever the donor wants", so they may be related to race. They may also be related to a zillion other things.
By the mere fact of minorities being here and students interacting with them, there is more knowledge. Thus less racism.
*bearing in mind that there are seldom "identical" candidates.
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quote:7. A requirement that a certain number of percentage of minorities be accepted/hired. I can accept this in certain very specific situations, such as a penalty for employers who have been proven to use discrimatory hiring practices, or in situations where it has been shown that belonging to a minority class is somehow essential to the job.
Amen. We've been keeping white rappers down for way, way too long.
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Having a diverse group of teachers and students – different races, genders, nationalities, socio-economic backgrounds, etc – enriches the learning environment. This enrichment is to the benefit of all the students, no matter what anyone thinks about how any of them got there.
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Thanks for the detailed analysis, Chris. Are the "don't like its" part of what you will "grudgingly accept" while the conditions you described last?
I agree with most of your reactions. I'm in favor of 13, but really as the method for implementing 12, but it's a very lawyer-particular kind of response.
10 is tricky. Are you assuming the specific packages are privately funded?
I tend to agree that the more that can be done based on class - or, even better, made available to everyone, resources permitting - the better off we are.
With respect to your answer for 7, this is about the only time quotas are allowed. However, in many circumstances, mere disproportionate treatment acts to shift the burden of proof to the employer - he then has to prove he isn't discriminating. This results in a large number of de facto quotas among federal contractors especially, where they make sure they are meeting that minimum percentage to avoid a suit where they have the burden of proof.
I'm sensing a pattern to your responses (and to mine), but I think I'll see if anyone else replies before trying to voice it.
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Re: 10 - yes. Aid packages from the government and from the schools themselves should not discriminate on the basis of race in any manner. Private grants and packages from foundations should still be permitted to discriminate on the basis of what the donor wants, as kmbboots said.
And no, the "grudging acceptance" was on the concept of affirmative action. Here, where you thoughtfully broke out specific instances, I voted my preferences.
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Since I've already defended skinny, attractive, and rich people in the last few days, I guess no one will be too surprised when I come out against AA. I'm really not as WASPy as you think.
I just hate the idea of an opening going to someone who's not the most qualified, simply to fill some arbitrary quota. Especially when the whole system, it seems to me, is designed to say, "Sorry about keeping down minorities all these years. Does this make it right?"
Great idea, bad execution, in my opinion.
Much like Chris, all I'd like is for people to be admitted based on their qualifications and merits, and leave skin color out of it. I realize that's still a little ambitious, but I feel confident we can get there.
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quote:I just hate the idea of an opening going to someone who's not the most qualified, simply to fill some arbitrary quota.
The point of my list is that what you object to is a tiny portion of affirmative action. For example, at least one of the things Chris objects to does nothing to increase the chance that a less qualified person will be taken. And quotas have been disfavored for years now.
With respect to universities, is merit the only appropriate criteria? If so, what is merit? The ability to do well in class grade-wise? How much the person will benefit society if they are admitted?
What I like about AA discussions is that they can't be done right without examining some very basic and usually unstated assumptions.
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quote:Originally posted by Chris Bridges: I support the elimination of affirmative action. I also support the elimination of getting into school as a legacy, or because your parents bought a gym, or any other reason than merit. And I support the elimination of discriminatory hiring practices so that employers always hire the most qualified person no matter what the race.
I support all of that as well. But I oppose anyone being forced to do any of it.
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With a large pool of equally but not identically qualified applicants, it is not about who is more deserving - they are all deserving. It is about what they bring to the university. Diversity of race, gender, experience, experience is an asset to the university.
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To preface my views on affirmative action, I need to explain that in present day America, I'm against any restrictions on judging applicants based on any criteria (read: I think if a business or a school only wants to admit/hire good looking Buddhist caucasians, I think they should be allowed to without legal consequence). In that sense, I find affirmative action very counterproductive and restrictive, but I'll stick to my own original point: whether affirmative action is beneficial or detrimental to combatting racism.
1. A requirement that jobs or educational opportunities be advertised in minority-specific media and locations.
Yes. While it could conceivably be possible for an institution to have other legitimate reasons why they do not want to advertise in a given area, this is a good play-it-safe measure.
2. A requirement that recruiters go to schools w/ a high minority concentration.
Yes. See my reasoning for #1.
3. A requirement that recruiters go to schools w. high minority concentrations in disproportion to the representation of such schools in the recruiting area.
Yes. Same reasoning.
4. A requirement that standardized tests with disparate impact (lower minority scores than majority scores) be curved separately for minorities or otherwise adjusted to account for the difference.
Absolutely not. To allow for such adjustment would be an open admission to viewing a minority group as posessing lower/higher than average intelligence/ability.
5. A requirement that minorities receive additional points simply for being a minority.
Absolutely not.
6. A requirement that minority status be used as a tiebreaker between otherwise identical candidates.
Absolutely not. This is the area where I absolutely cannot stand affirmative action; when race is the deciding factor between otherwise identical candidates.
7. A requirement that a certain number of percentage of minorities be accepted/hired.
Absolutely not. See #6.
8. The use of race as one factor among many in deciding who to accept.
Nope. Same reasoning.
9. The reduction of minimum standards for minorities.
Nope. See #4.
10. Financial aid available to minority students not available to other students.
Iffy. If the institution is providing the financial aid out of money derived from tuition, general donations or taxes, absolutely not. If the money is from private donations specifically earmarked to aid students of a specific demographic, then yes.
11. Incentives not available to other applicants to attract qualified minority applicants.
See #10.
12. A hard look at criteria that create a disparate impact to see if they are truly related to performance.
Same as Chris' answer here.
13. Requiring a higher level of proof of relatedness for criteria w/ a disparate impact.
See #12.
14. Special counseling and assistance programs to people several years away from applying only available to minority students.
Again, if funded privately and earmarked specifically for the minority students in question. Otherwise, no.
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Twist on number 4. Tests are used to predict performance. They are validated (that might not be the right scientific term) by comparing results on the test with subsequent performance.
What if all the scientific data shows that the predictive power of a test is exactly the same for minorities and majorities if you scale the minority scores by 10 points? That is, what if they can prove that the predicted performance for a black person who scores 90 is the exact same as the predicted performance for a white person who scores 100?
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quote:For both admissions and hiring at this university, standards are not lowered for minority students. I would say that of Dagonee's list we employ 1, 2, and 6* (though I would say "policy" rather than "requirement"). 4, 7, and 9 we do not. The rest, I'm not sure.
It makes sense you don't use all of them. Some of these I took from hiring programs and adapted them.
And I agree with your caveat on "identical."
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quote:With a large pool of equally but not identically qualified applicants, it is not about who is more deserving - they are all deserving. It is about what they bring to the university. Diversity of race, gender, experience, experience is an asset to the university.
I wholeheartedly agree, but how do you determine whether unidentically qualified applicants are equally qualified, and how can you ascertain that the desire to fuel diversity isn't admitting unqualified applicants or denying qualified ones?
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Twist on number 4. Tests are used to predict performance. They are validated (that might not be the right scientific term) by comparing results on the test with subsequent performance.
What if all the scientific data shows that the predictive power of a test is exactly the same for minorities and majorities if you scale the minority scores by 10 points? That is, what if they can prove that the predicted performance for a black person who scores 90 is the exact same as the predicted performance for a white person who scores 100?
That's a really difficult question to answer. I think it would really depend on the specifics of the studies involved, which would likely be subjected to far better scrutiny than I can offer.
Even if the studies are validated post-scrutiny, I'm not sure how I'd feel about it.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: With a large pool of equally but not identically qualified applicants, it is not about who is more deserving - they are all deserving. It is about what they bring to the university. Diversity of race, gender, experience, experience is an asset to the university.
You're at least the second person in this thread who has said something like this, and it seems to be a common argument, yet I've never seen any facts to back it up. Are there any studies that have shown that students benefit from having teachers of different races and both genders? What about countries with very racially homogeneous populations? Are their universities at a disadvantage because they don't have racially diverse faculty?
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Quotas are a myth, as the public sees them. They are a punitive action that is only instituted when a company (I was explained this in my IBM "diversity" orientation) cannot prove that they have spent an effort to recruit a minority in proportion to their presence in a community in which the company has a physical presence. Note the emphasis on effort; they don't have to have hired the same precentage of people, but they need to at least try. There is no formal method, that was told, to actually go about this. The companies are free to choose their own method.
If a company institutes a quota pre-emptively, that's just a lazy HR department, not a problem with AA. AA not only fights "hard" racism, but it also combats the fact that people have a natural predisposition to be more comfortable with those like them. How else do you explain this report: Study suggests bias against 'black' names on resumes I don't assume racism is involved here, but a familiarity thing. --
I'm not a huge fan of the particulars that some institutions use to implement their AA policies, but AA is really a system that eventually has no impact once it isn't an issue. In other words, when you are actually recruiting fairly, it isn't something you need to take into account.
Just remember AA is NOT quotas. Quotas are a punishment for not satisfying (or properly documenting, I suppose) AA policies, which ultimately seem pretty straightforward to me.
quote:With a large pool of equally but not identically qualified applicants, it is not about who is more deserving - they are all deserving. It is about what they bring to the university. Diversity of race, gender, experience, experience is an asset to the university.
I wholeheartedly agree, but how do you determine whether unidentically qualified applicants are equally qualified, and how can you ascertain that the desire to fuel diversity isn't admitting unqualified applicants or denying qualified ones?
For admissions? We always end up denying qualified applicants. There are always more qualified students than we can admit. There is no real way to discern very subtle differences.
For hiring? Mostly professors are hired in terms of their research and our teaching needs. When two professors both fit our needs and have stellar research, being a minority candidate is considered a bonus - an additional something that he or she brings to the university.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: With a large pool of equally but not identically qualified applicants, it is not about who is more deserving - they are all deserving. It is about what they bring to the university. Diversity of race, gender, experience, experience is an asset to the university.
You're at least the second person in this thread who has said something like this, and it seems to be a common argument, yet I've never seen any facts to back it up. Are there any studies that have shown that students benefit from having teachers of different races and both genders? What about countries with very racially homogeneous populations? Are their universities at a disadvantage because they don't have racially diverse faculty?
It is based on the idea that exposure to different kinds of people will make someone more comfortable with and less likely to be prejudiced toward minorities. A university is a place where students should be exposed to all sorts of different experiences.
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1) I don't think that we should get rid of the role of legacy, or networking, or nepotism, or biasing for high schools, or colleges or churches or the ADA. Shooting for a triple-distilled, 200 proof meritocracy isn't the most laudable goal if it means that we have to dehumanize society. Hell, if we were serious, we'd forget state boundaries, and elect the top 100 vote-getters to Senate or the top 435 to the House, that would solve the problems of gerry-mandering in a hurry.
The best we can hope for is to throw all of these factors in, including affirmative action, and hope that the results are decently fair.
2) Weighing the problems of group think against merit is tricky business: six ghetto crackheads with an elementary school education could have foretold the problems of installing a free democracy in Iraq, and all they would have had to do was look out on their own streets. Instead, we had the brightest minds in the administration overlook the problem of rebuilding Iraq. If one of those crackheads had been in the room when the decision was made to go to war, maybe the admin would have thought more about the problems that go along with rebuilding.
In medicine, we constantly have issues where tge brightest surgeons want to cut and a mediocre outlying hippy generalist wants to investigate other approaches. The number of C sections that are being administered without thought of the physical and psychological toll of the surgery is evidence for this.
In general, I don't think that we really respect the severe problems that go along with ideological homogenity. I think it's because we praise efficieny so much, and homogenity is a way to increase efficiency. The problem being that it's an awful way to pick your goals to begin with, even if homogenity is the most efficient means to bring them about.
Was it GE who proudly promoted the straightest whitest people they could find for reasons of efficiency. They only had to deal with one set of cultural vices.
quote:For admissions? We always end up denying qualified applicants. There are always more qualified students than we can admit.
I understand this, but if you're using minority status as a qualifier with the condition of candidates being otherwise "equally but not [necessarily] identically qualified," how can you determine that the qualifications other than minority status are being given equal, primary consideration? ARE they the primary consideration?
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What if all the scientific data shows that the predictive power of a test is exactly the same for minorities and majorities if you scale the minority scores by 10 points? That is, what if they can prove that the predicted performance for a black person who scores 90 is the exact same as the predicted performance for a white person who scores 100?
I would not skew the test. Rather, I would be fascinated as to why the results were what they were, and make that the focus of the next test...
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See, I think injustice should be addressed and fixed when it is found, but I do not think we should put in any policies that promote or admit based on anything but merit. If you can show me that someone was denied a job because he was a minority - and can prove that he was MORE qualified than a non-minority hiree, then the company should be punished and the minority should be compensated for what he was unfairly denied.
But I do not think that policies should be in effect that require a company to hire or give preferential treatment to minorities. In my husband's fire department, they maintain two separate promotional lists - one for white candidates and one for black candidates. They promote exactly fifty percent from each list. Now, the lists are determined by points, points are awarded based on experience, education, tests, interview results, etc.
Let's say, hypothetically that we are promoting ten captains. If we had one list, my husband was number 8 on that list. He would get promoted. But, remember that only five white captains can be promoted, so he isn't - because we have to take the top five scorers on the minority list, no matter where they would have fallen if the two lists were merged.
I think that's wrong. And, in fact, the firefighter's union filed suit saying it was discriminatory against white firefighters because a review of the last five years or so of promotions saw many white firefighters denied promotion, when they would have been promoted if the lists were merged.
I say, if you promote based on points, you should promote the top ten in points, period. If the top ten names are all black, then you have ten black captains. If they're all white, you have ten white captains. But that is not how it's done.
Punish wrongdoing where it's found and can be proven. But do not give perferential treatment to any class of citizen, promote based on merit.
Like ersomniac, I have no problem with private organizations or private money being restricted - if I want to set up a scholarship for white girls with freckles who graduate from a St Clair County high school and it's my money I should be able to do it. But public money or policies should never give preference to someone because of ethnicity or religion. Economic status - yes, I don't see why you can't have aid programs for people based on economic need as long as it is available equally to both minority and non-minority students with need.
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I found some thoughts I posted on college selection criteria in another thread. It's appropriate here:
quote:In colleges, people seem to have a default expectation that the "right" person is the one with the best grades or the highest test scores or the best extra-curricular activities. This isn't really the case. Even the slightly better criteria, "who will do best in college," won't necessarily admit the "right" person, even if it could be measured perfectly. College is not a reward for past performance nor a self-contained, self-measuring program. Education is useful to society because of the type of people it produces. Truly successful colleges should be measured by how their alums contribute to society. I admit I have no practical means of making such a measurement. But the mere fact that colleges aren't about how well students do in college means that we shouldn't necessarily consider policies that reject "better" students as automatically bad.
quote:Say person X will contribute 1000* to society without college, and 1100 to society with college. Person Y will contribute 400 to society without college, and 900 with it. The college doesn't contribute as much to society by admitting X over Y. I don't think every admissions decision has to be made like this, but I don't think people examine the whole situation when they speak of merit-only admissions policies. *Remember, I don't actually think this is reducible to a single number. Also, I think that some people who start at a higher "society contribution" measure will gain even more in college compared to some people who start with a lower measure. This was one example only.
quote:For admissions? We always end up denying qualified applicants. There are always more qualified students than we can admit.
I understand this, but if you're using minority status as a qualifier with the condition of candidates being otherwise "equally but not [necessarily] identically qualified," how can you determine that the qualifications other than minority status are being given equal, primary consideration? ARE they the primary consideration?
Things like test scores, class rank, essays, recommendations etc. are looked at first.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Let's say, hypothetically that we are promoting ten captains. If we had one list, my husband was number 8 on that list. He would get promoted. But, remember that only five white captains can be promoted, so he isn't - because we have to take the top five scorers on the minority list, no matter where they would have fallen if the two lists were merged.
Is your husband's fire department divided exactly (or even reasonably close to) halfway in racial balance between blacks and whites? Otherwise, I have no idea how this makes any sense to anyone.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: It is based on the idea that exposure to different kinds of people will make someone more comfortable with and less likely to be prejudiced toward minorities.
I understand the idea that it's based on, but I'd like to know if it's ever been proven to have merit.
quote:A university is a place where students should be exposed to all sorts of different experiences.
I disagree with this, or at least with the generalized way you presented it. And anyway, we're talking about more than just universities here. Has anyone ever demonstrated that diversity in a workplace actually helps that workplace in any way?
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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