Why not have a program of giving first place in line to black people to public restrooms or water fountains or busses, on the rationale that black people were deprived in the past of timely access to services in general? Why not have affirmative action in sports, so that black people are ten times as likely to receive a spot on a soccer/lacrosse/cross country/track/etc. team with the same qualifications as a white person?
I do not really understand why people support AA but then reject things like quotas. I don't really understand the principles that people appeal to when justifying racial discrimination in AA but not racial discrimination generally. Also, I don't know why people don't also support giving tax benefits to black people. This seems like (1) a much more direct way of benefiting black people (especially if you think economics are driving all of these disparities) and (2) would actually disproportionately benefit poor blacks. I honestly think support for AA is status quo bias.
Even if AA did in some way "undo" the effects of past racist policies, that still wouldn't make it justified. At best, AA would be neutral, since it would undo a past racist policy and replace it with a new racist policy. This would be like lynching a white person today to undo a lynching of a black person in the past. Even if we could "undo" alleged injustices in this way, that wouldn't justify imposing new injustices on innocents today.
The Fourteenth Amendment interpretation here is, in layman’s terms, that these publicly funded universities (read: basically every university in the country) are required by law not to discriminate by race. Courts have interpreted this ban on racial discrimination to be equivalent to the one that the Fourteenth Amendment sets on states. “Laws” often refers to all actions by the government: for example, while the First Amendment says “Congress shall pass no law” to restrict freedom of speech, if a police officer beats you up for saying you don’t support the President, that’s still a First Amendment violation. Thus, “equal protection of the laws” means that States will not discriminate on the basis of race unless if they meet strict scrutiny. Strict scrutiny requires a compelling government interest and that discrimination be narrowly tailored to that interest. For example, if prison guards expect a race riot, they can segregate prisoners temporarily by race to avoid direct human harm. This requirement is an incredibly difficult one to meet. Racial discrimination laws extend this to universities, placing strict scrutiny on any racial discrimination they participate in. The Court ruled that their current affirmative action programs do not meet the incredibly demanding standard set by the law, and are thus illegal.
I'm curious about the new vogue for Diversity Statements in academia. I seem to recall a great outpouring of revulsion back in the 1950s against so-called Loyalty Oaths, chiefly by academics and other liberal intelligentsia. How times change!
I'm not sure why you are confused with Roberts' focus on the 14th amendment. 1) The suit alleged both Title VI and the 14th amendment were violated, so I don't think he could avoid the issue. 2) The previous rulings such as Bakke and Grutter dealt with the issue in terms of the 14th amendment, and this case seemed appropriate for addressing the 25 year limit for race-conscious admissions. I also think that his exposition on the history of the 14th amendment being ignored in statutes is relevant.
I kind of thought he was just being rhetorical, saying in effect “not clear equal protection clause of 14th amendment makes AA illegal but 1964 Act definitely does!--yet majority focuses on the former not the latter. Strange.”
And he has a point. On textual grounds Title VI clearly prohibits any kind of racial discrimination, full stop. The equal protection clause, on the other hand, has been interpreted to mean something like “equal treatment by the law” even though that doesn’t appear to be its original meaning. Its original meaning was “states have a constitutional duty to enforce their laws to protect all persons--including former slaves.” This was passed in 1868 and the historical context is important: southern states might “look the other way” and allow Ku Klux Klan terrorism to occur against former slaves. So states that failed to “protect” them violated the Constitution and gave the federal govt the legal authority to punish them for the lapse. This actually happened for a decade called Reconstruction, with feds heavily policing the south. Then in late 1870s politics changed in DC and feds retreated, ushering in 75 years of Jim Crow. Had the feds kept policing the south aggressively for a get ration or two, we might have a very different racial history in this country. Alas...
It’s understandable how the meaning of equal protection evolved, especially with the overly narrow interpretation of the privileges or immunities clause of the 14th amendment. But still, Title VI is a much cleaner vehicle for striking down AA.
How come some people feel so strongly about past wrongs, and group identitys?
Ive seen several people that talk about past atrocities against native americans or blacks (that i think happened and were terrible) and then go to “therefore me must right that wrong, either by redistributing or by punishing current represntatives of the other group”
Which always confused me, even when i were guilty about ancestors crimes: i have no relationship to them? I do somewhat get the idea that if i have something unearned that i own, that its good to redistribute it, but they often seem adamant about way more then that.
Its a weird identification with collectivism, and history. If something has good consequences i can see why i should morally do it, but yo do something because my great great great great great great great great great grandfathered murdered someone seems bizarre
Because the State is still harming and/or unjustly benefiting from others. Here’s a talk that shows today’s suffering of people at the hands of the state (content warning, make sure you have some tissues because this video is likely to make you cry, at least I did): https://youtu.be/MS6ARB2CgLI
I havnt watched the video you linked here yet, but im gonna assume its about terrible things the US goverment is doing to current native american populations, or black populations?
Ive read and watched a lot of stuff on that, and generally speaking i feel like its terrible yes, but that people get extremely emotional about it and dont fully analyse the problem or the causes, and get stuck in an overly simplistic oppressor vs oppressed mindset
Which can sometimes be correct, but for most modern terrible things the us state does is insufficient because the whole system is so complicated, and its super rare that someone goes “yes i wanna screw over X population to benefits mine”
Definitely watch it man, it focuses only on the Lakota people, and it’s something that the state absolutely does not want anyone to see. It also supports my point that the reasons against reparation which Mike outlined in his post all (miserably) fail. Non-identity problem fails because the Lakota are seriously harmed by today’s state. Of course, in some way, everyone is harmed by today’s state, but we’ve also benefited, too, whereas the Lakota haven’t in any meaningful way. And, Mitigation must also apply to the state and, in this respect, it has utterly failed to mitigate harms to the Lakota.
(At least) two things can happen: (1) the Lakota go extinct (which is what the state probably prays for everyday), or (2) the state will be brought to its knees and be forced to honour the treaties.
I support both repatriation and reparations for the Lakota (and all First Nations).
Do you think that universities care about offering racial preferences? Or just appearing to take a side on the issue?
Usually, if you primarily bcare about some goal you'll hold the goal fixed but consider different plans to achieve it and take care to choose the best. But, with affirmative action it's reversed and the mechanism seems to be the fixed point that the justifications change to fit -- with no consideration of whether the policy is even an efficient way to that end.
So will they really try to evade the ruling or just announce loud opposition?
The reason the decision focused on the Equal Protection Clause is explained in a footnote in the opinion. Essentially, the Supreme Court equates violating the EPC with a violation of Title VI. I agree with you (as does Justice Gorsuch) that it would make more sense to analyze this case using Title VI's clear language.
Here's the footnote (n. 2):
"Title VI provides that '[n]o person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.' 42 U. S. C. §2000d. 'We have explained that discrimination that violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment committed by an institution that accepts federal funds also constitutes a violation of Title VI.' Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 244, 276, n. 23 (2003). Although JUSTICE GORSUCH questions that proposition, no party asks us to reconsider it. We accordingly evaluate Harvard’s admissions program under the standards of the Equal Protection Clause itself. "
Isn’t this just a logic error? Violating 14a and accepting federal funds-> violating title VI does not mean violating title VI and accepting federal funds -> violating 14a
I (and Roberts) may have phrased this a little confusedly. Essentially, the court has more or less interpreted the language of Title VI as co-extensive with the Equal Protection Clause, so to violate Title VI you have to engage in behavior that would violate the Equal Protection Clause if it was done by a state (even though this doesn't really make sense on the face of the statute).
This blog post from 2015 isn't directly related to the current legal decision, but I think it's still pertinent and important to revisit (apologies to Mike if he's done this or looked at some of this literature and discussed it somewhere already). If affirmative action simply pays lip service, or worse, hides in that lip service, the statistics that it seems to have backfired (at least as of 2015), then it potentially makes the education and economic divide even greater.
"Affirmative action is before the Supreme Court again this week [2015], as it rehears arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas. (I’ve discussed the legal issues in Fisher here.)
But perhaps the most important question about racial preferences is one that’s not directly raised by the case: do they even work? Do they help underrepresented minorities to achieve their goals, and foster interracial interaction and understanding on elite campuses? Or do large preferences often “mismatch” students in campuses where they will struggle and fail?
Scholars began empirically studying the mismatch issue in the 1990s, but in the past five years the field has matured. There are now dozens of careful, peer-reviewed studies that find strong evidence of mismatch ...." https://fee.org/articles/how-affirmative-action-can-backfire/
You say: “Only the most extreme voices on the left (wokists) and right (white supremacists) want to keep admitting and hiring people based on skin color.”
It’s interesting that you compare or equate Affirmative Action (AA) with the hiring practises of the extreme right (i.e., White Supremacists), which I’ll label, for the purposes of this comment, as AAx (i.e. the extreme right’s version of AA).
I’m against AA because I’m against discrimination, and I think AA, in practise, has the unintended effect of perpetuating the historical injustice that it seeks to resolve. However, I think AA isn’t motivated for the same reasons as AAx.
If I’m not mistaken (I’m not a polisci or history major study) but AA seems like a form of reparation for slavery. And, I think a strong case can be made for reparations (I’m actually for reparations). But AAx is motivated because of the false belief that minorities are inferior to whites. So your comparison seems like an equivocation. (Or perhaps I’m just misinterpreting your point, apologies if so).
But let me just try to make a case for AA. You see, the ability for someone who is seriously economically and socially disadvantaged because of the legacy of slavery, is that they cannot even apply for education on a level playing ground, as those who haven’t been blighted by such a legacy. Consider the emerging phenomenon of “teenage scholars”, whose well to do parents can afford the exorbitant fees to publish in academic journals (among other services like tutoring, etc). This practise is thought to be a way that rich families game the system to ensure their continued presence is felt in institutions of education, governance, etc.
Now, can someone disadvantaged by the legacy of slavery compete with that, when applying to a top university? I don’t think so.
What I think can be done is that when two applications are being compared, the reviewer could discount the “scholarly” publications of the “teenage scholar” and then compare the applications on a level playing ground.
Maybe that’s not exactly AA but I think that’s what progress would look like.
Thanks. Yeah, Boonin makes some sense, but here’s something else to consider: Why think that mitigation applies only to the descendants of slaves, but not to the state? By now, the state has had many years since slavery was abolished to implement anti-racist policies and effect beneficial societal changes, something that racialized communities are still calling for.
So allow me to bring to your attention some stats that might show if such communities are actually a priority for the state. Unfortunately, this involves bringing up Trump’s social media activity.
So former President Trump apparently retweeted the following stats in an infographic, supposedly from the crime statistics bureau of San Francisco, USA CRIME STATISTICS 2015:
Blacks killed by Whites: ≈2%
Blacks killed by Police: ≈1%
Whites killed by Police: ≈3%
Whites killed by Whites: ≈16%
Whites killed by Blacks: ≈81%
Blacks killed by Blacks: ≈97%
But, Mike, there’s no such organization as the crime statistics bureau of San Francisco—it’s completely made up (including those stats).
Nonetheless, according to some, false stats like that may fuel a popular claim echoed in the words of journalist Rod Liddle (of The Sun newspaper in the UK): “there’s also no doubt whatsoever that the greatest danger to black people in the USA is…er…other black people. Black-on-black murders average more than 4000 each year. The number of black men killed by US cops - rightly or wrongly - is little more than 100 each year. Go on, do the math”
And messages like Liddle’s may fuel another popular view: that blacks are overreacting, and that it’s actually other black people they should be afraid of, not police officers. But as for Liddle’s challenge to “do the math”, some smart people called his bluff and actually did the math, so let’s see the results.
Firstly, here are the real figures about US Crime Statistics for 2015 that investigative journalists (of The Guardian newspaper) and mathematician Kit Yates compiled:
Blacks killed by Whites: ≈9%
Blacks killed by Police: ≈11%
Whites killed by Police: ≈16%
Whites killed by Whites: ≈81%
Whites killed by Blacks: ≈16%
Blacks killed by Blacks: ≈89%
Notice how the 81% and 16% percent figures near the bottom are flipped.
And, now let’s see whether the data actually support the claim that blacks should be more afraid of black people than police officers in the USA.
Numbers of killings 2015:
All killings, in which the victim was black: 2664
black-on-black murders: 2380 (so, fewer than what Liddle reported)
white-on-black: 229
officer-on-black: 307
All killings, in which the victim was white: 3167
black-on-white murders: 500
white-on-white: 2574
officer-on-white: 584
Notice how, despite being only ≈12% of the total population of the USA, black people make up something like 45% of victims. Isn’t the disproportionate number of black victims something the state would be interested to address?
Now to see if the claim that black people ought to fear other black people more than the police, but first a thought experiment by Kit Yates:
in 2015, toddlers shot and killed 21 US citizens while bears killed just two.
So, is it better to be left alone in a room with a bear or a toddler?
The intuition you’re supposed to have is that what really matters for assessing different dangers is not the absolute number of killings but the per capita rates, given the different total numbers of toddlers and bears in the US (and easy access to guns; due to the second amendment).
OK, so now let’s look at the per capita rates:
So black-on-black: 2380 divided by 40,242,818 (number of black people in the US)
And officer-on-black: 307 divided by 635,781 (number of officers in the US).
So, as Kit Yates put it, if you’re a black person walking in a dark alley and you see someone coming towards you, who should you be afraid of more, a black person or a police officer?
Well, the per capita killing rate of black-on-black is 1/16908 and the per capita killing rate of officer-on-black is 1/2071.
So much for Trump’s retweet and Liddle’s shameless blurb in The Sun (literally the UK’s, maybe the world’s, worst newspaper).
The most damning part of this is that the journalists found that the FBI, even up to 2015, didn’t keep accurate records of the ethnicities of people killed by cops.
So are racialized communities who make up like 45% of all victims in the US when they comprise only 12% of the population really a priority for the state? I don’t think so.
Anyway, I got all the above info from Kit Yates and I think, if it’s all correct, then it supports my point about mitigation, that the state doesn’t really care about the plight of racialized communities, so they should pay up, and everyone should support reparations.
According to these numbers, blacks killed by... sums to 109%. Lidell's numbers sum to 100%. So, either the Guardian is obviously wrong or else they are using phrases like "Blacks killed by whites" to mean something entirely different. Maybe: Of all people killed by whites, x% were Black." But if you're comparing two different types of numbers, you should make that clear.
It’s likely a typo, and the listed source for those numbers is actually the FBI; which, as I understand it, collected the data after The Guardian investigated the matter. The Liddle numbers are wrong (he claimed 4000 to 100, which wasn’t the case).
Oh, I see now where the confusion is. You mentioned Liddle’s numbers but you actually meant the numbers of the crime statistics bureau of San Francisco; which, again, are bogus, completely made up and that organization doesn’t even exist. I think the reason why the real numbers add up to more than 100 percent, is that the data of the officer category is double-counted by the ethnicity categories. That doesn’t seem so problematic, given that we were interested to know total officer shootings, but of course you could further categorize by the ethnicities of the officers. Hope that clarifies any earlier confusion.
- I've never seen a teenage scholar with publications in an academic journal.
- You cannot get published in an academic journal by paying them money. I'm surprised that people think journals work like this (?). If you're talking about predatory journals, they're not going to help you get into college.
- Nor do you have to pay exorbitant fees to get published. Again, unless you're talking about bogus, predatory journals. This is not relevant to college admissions.
We can discuss reparations at a later time. But just on the legal issue, the law doesn't contain any exception clause like "unless your discrimination makes up for past discrimination".
"But let me just try to make a case for AA. You see, the ability for someone who is seriously economically and socially disadvantaged because of the legacy of slavery, is that they cannot even apply for education on a level playing ground, as those who haven’t been blighted by such a legacy. "
This doesn't explain why AA gives preferences to descendants of recent African/Hispanic immigrants. E.g. something like 40% of the Black students as some Ivy leagues are descendants of African immigrants.
AA only applies to the most selective institutions, whom are presumably not those most harmed by "racist" policies. Undoing AA will just shift black students from elite universities down towards where they belong in terms of their academic performance, which would be sub-elite but great schools.
This is a conceptual point, but it's not even clear what it means to "undo" the effects of racist policies. Racist policies have already happened and presumably people have already been victimized. It's not clear how giving advantages to already privileged black people (many of whom immigrated recently) "undoes" those policies.
Even if AA did in some way "undo" the effects of past racist policies, that still wouldn't make it justified. At best, AA would be neutral, since it would undo a past racist policy and replace it with a new racist policy. This would be like lynching a white person today to undo a lynching of a black person in the past. Even if we could "undo" alleged injustices in this way, that wouldn't justify imposing new injustices on innocents today.
Due to racial disparities in mobility, it's unlikely that AA has any meaningful impact on the aggregate socioeconomic standing of black people. As already stated, this only targets the most elite slice of black people.
But also, children of successful black parents tend to be disproportionately downwardly mobile, both economically and educationally. It is differences in mobility that is driving racial inequalities today (https://reasonwithoutrestraint.com/racial-disparities-in-intergenerational-mobility/). AA doesn't address the underlying causes of mobility differences, so it won't have any long-run impact on alleviating inequality.
Also, and probably most important, courts have explicitly ruled that colleges are not permitted to impose racial preferences to "rectify" or "undo" past racist policies, unless that particular institution was directly responsible for racist policies. Instead, the constitutional defenses of racial preferences has been based on the alleged benefits of diversity itself. I don't remember all the details, but the same author cites a few reviews of court cases in his blog post (https://reasonwithoutrestraint.com/racial-preferences-at-elite-american-universities/).
I think people think, without AA, there would be little to no black people who would be able to gain a college education due to entrenched racism. AA is then seen as this necessary tool of social mobility for black people to escape deep poverty and racism that would otherwise hold them back. In actuality, poor blacks are not helped at all by AA. In fact, the vast majority of blacks aren't helped because most blacks don't go to college and the vast majority aren't going to the selective colleges that would practice AA to begin with.
That's probably a critical (empirical) prior that explains liberal support for AA.
Another prior that I constantly hear is this: "race only is a factor as a tie-breaker. We only appeal to race when participants are similar on everything else". I don't know where this idea came from but it's just an outright lie at this point.
AA might be one of those cases where the best way to change someone's mind isn't to make explicitly moral or prescriptive arguments. Instead, we can just cover all of the relevant facts and I think most reasonable people will lose support for AA at least based on current implementation.
I also do not really understand why people support AA but then reject things like quotas. I don't really understand the principles that people appeal to when justifying racial discrimination in AA but not racial discrimination generally. Also, I don't know why people don't also support giving tax benefits to black people. This seems like (1) a much more direct way of benefiting black people (especially if you think economics are driving all of these disparities) and (2) would actually disproportionately benefit poor blacks. I honestly think support for AA is status quo bias. Why not have a program of giving first place in line to black people to public restrooms or water fountains or busses, on the rationale that black people were deprived in the past of timely access to services in general? Why not have affirmative action in sports, so that black people are ten times as likely to receive a spot on a soccer/lacrosse/cross country/track/etc. team with the same qualifications as a white person?
Support the status quo? No, I think it’s intended to have the opposite effect.
Suppose there’s a native tribe and settler population cohabiting a parcel of land. The settler population establishes a police force, which has authority over everyone. After many generations this police force continues to reflect (and serve the interests) of only the settlers and their descendants. Many, if not most, of the settlers don’t like the natives, who they think of as inferior savages. They even forcibly remove the children of the natives in an effort to “civilize” them by teaching them settler customs and religion. The natives demand change, and eventually the settlers promise that everyone will be treated equally under the law. Unfortunately, the police force continues to reflect (and serve the interests of) mainly the settlers and their descendants.
What do you think should happen to the police force?
Implementing a policy of AA is one way by which to break the cycle of reflecting and serving the interests of the settlers.
In Canada, a police department in Thunder Bay was actually disbanded because of systemic racism—intergenerational systemic racism!
Now, I don’t know how to fix such problems but I think indifference to the plight of segments of society is an unacceptable response.
"But AAx is motivated because of the false belief that minorities are inferior to whites."
Is that in fact a false belief? It seems pretty obvious to me that some races are better than others on average. I would like to see an actual argument (not just an assertion) that all races are equal,
If Asian people don’t exist then the claim that Asian people are superior to other people is vacuously true. But I think actually Asian people do exist.
Why not have a program of giving first place in line to black people to public restrooms or water fountains or busses, on the rationale that black people were deprived in the past of timely access to services in general? Why not have affirmative action in sports, so that black people are ten times as likely to receive a spot on a soccer/lacrosse/cross country/track/etc. team with the same qualifications as a white person?
I do not really understand why people support AA but then reject things like quotas. I don't really understand the principles that people appeal to when justifying racial discrimination in AA but not racial discrimination generally. Also, I don't know why people don't also support giving tax benefits to black people. This seems like (1) a much more direct way of benefiting black people (especially if you think economics are driving all of these disparities) and (2) would actually disproportionately benefit poor blacks. I honestly think support for AA is status quo bias.
Even if AA did in some way "undo" the effects of past racist policies, that still wouldn't make it justified. At best, AA would be neutral, since it would undo a past racist policy and replace it with a new racist policy. This would be like lynching a white person today to undo a lynching of a black person in the past. Even if we could "undo" alleged injustices in this way, that wouldn't justify imposing new injustices on innocents today.
The Fourteenth Amendment interpretation here is, in layman’s terms, that these publicly funded universities (read: basically every university in the country) are required by law not to discriminate by race. Courts have interpreted this ban on racial discrimination to be equivalent to the one that the Fourteenth Amendment sets on states. “Laws” often refers to all actions by the government: for example, while the First Amendment says “Congress shall pass no law” to restrict freedom of speech, if a police officer beats you up for saying you don’t support the President, that’s still a First Amendment violation. Thus, “equal protection of the laws” means that States will not discriminate on the basis of race unless if they meet strict scrutiny. Strict scrutiny requires a compelling government interest and that discrimination be narrowly tailored to that interest. For example, if prison guards expect a race riot, they can segregate prisoners temporarily by race to avoid direct human harm. This requirement is an incredibly difficult one to meet. Racial discrimination laws extend this to universities, placing strict scrutiny on any racial discrimination they participate in. The Court ruled that their current affirmative action programs do not meet the incredibly demanding standard set by the law, and are thus illegal.
I'm curious about the new vogue for Diversity Statements in academia. I seem to recall a great outpouring of revulsion back in the 1950s against so-called Loyalty Oaths, chiefly by academics and other liberal intelligentsia. How times change!
I'm not sure why you are confused with Roberts' focus on the 14th amendment. 1) The suit alleged both Title VI and the 14th amendment were violated, so I don't think he could avoid the issue. 2) The previous rulings such as Bakke and Grutter dealt with the issue in terms of the 14th amendment, and this case seemed appropriate for addressing the 25 year limit for race-conscious admissions. I also think that his exposition on the history of the 14th amendment being ignored in statutes is relevant.
I kind of thought he was just being rhetorical, saying in effect “not clear equal protection clause of 14th amendment makes AA illegal but 1964 Act definitely does!--yet majority focuses on the former not the latter. Strange.”
And he has a point. On textual grounds Title VI clearly prohibits any kind of racial discrimination, full stop. The equal protection clause, on the other hand, has been interpreted to mean something like “equal treatment by the law” even though that doesn’t appear to be its original meaning. Its original meaning was “states have a constitutional duty to enforce their laws to protect all persons--including former slaves.” This was passed in 1868 and the historical context is important: southern states might “look the other way” and allow Ku Klux Klan terrorism to occur against former slaves. So states that failed to “protect” them violated the Constitution and gave the federal govt the legal authority to punish them for the lapse. This actually happened for a decade called Reconstruction, with feds heavily policing the south. Then in late 1870s politics changed in DC and feds retreated, ushering in 75 years of Jim Crow. Had the feds kept policing the south aggressively for a get ration or two, we might have a very different racial history in this country. Alas...
It’s understandable how the meaning of equal protection evolved, especially with the overly narrow interpretation of the privileges or immunities clause of the 14th amendment. But still, Title VI is a much cleaner vehicle for striking down AA.
How come some people feel so strongly about past wrongs, and group identitys?
Ive seen several people that talk about past atrocities against native americans or blacks (that i think happened and were terrible) and then go to “therefore me must right that wrong, either by redistributing or by punishing current represntatives of the other group”
Which always confused me, even when i were guilty about ancestors crimes: i have no relationship to them? I do somewhat get the idea that if i have something unearned that i own, that its good to redistribute it, but they often seem adamant about way more then that.
Its a weird identification with collectivism, and history. If something has good consequences i can see why i should morally do it, but yo do something because my great great great great great great great great great grandfathered murdered someone seems bizarre
Because the State is still harming and/or unjustly benefiting from others. Here’s a talk that shows today’s suffering of people at the hands of the state (content warning, make sure you have some tissues because this video is likely to make you cry, at least I did): https://youtu.be/MS6ARB2CgLI
I havnt watched the video you linked here yet, but im gonna assume its about terrible things the US goverment is doing to current native american populations, or black populations?
Ive read and watched a lot of stuff on that, and generally speaking i feel like its terrible yes, but that people get extremely emotional about it and dont fully analyse the problem or the causes, and get stuck in an overly simplistic oppressor vs oppressed mindset
Which can sometimes be correct, but for most modern terrible things the us state does is insufficient because the whole system is so complicated, and its super rare that someone goes “yes i wanna screw over X population to benefits mine”
Unless its democrats vs republicans
Definitely watch it man, it focuses only on the Lakota people, and it’s something that the state absolutely does not want anyone to see. It also supports my point that the reasons against reparation which Mike outlined in his post all (miserably) fail. Non-identity problem fails because the Lakota are seriously harmed by today’s state. Of course, in some way, everyone is harmed by today’s state, but we’ve also benefited, too, whereas the Lakota haven’t in any meaningful way. And, Mitigation must also apply to the state and, in this respect, it has utterly failed to mitigate harms to the Lakota.
(At least) two things can happen: (1) the Lakota go extinct (which is what the state probably prays for everyday), or (2) the state will be brought to its knees and be forced to honour the treaties.
I support both repatriation and reparations for the Lakota (and all First Nations).
Fuck the state!
Do you think that universities care about offering racial preferences? Or just appearing to take a side on the issue?
Usually, if you primarily bcare about some goal you'll hold the goal fixed but consider different plans to achieve it and take care to choose the best. But, with affirmative action it's reversed and the mechanism seems to be the fixed point that the justifications change to fit -- with no consideration of whether the policy is even an efficient way to that end.
So will they really try to evade the ruling or just announce loud opposition?
The reason the decision focused on the Equal Protection Clause is explained in a footnote in the opinion. Essentially, the Supreme Court equates violating the EPC with a violation of Title VI. I agree with you (as does Justice Gorsuch) that it would make more sense to analyze this case using Title VI's clear language.
Here's the footnote (n. 2):
"Title VI provides that '[n]o person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.' 42 U. S. C. §2000d. 'We have explained that discrimination that violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment committed by an institution that accepts federal funds also constitutes a violation of Title VI.' Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 244, 276, n. 23 (2003). Although JUSTICE GORSUCH questions that proposition, no party asks us to reconsider it. We accordingly evaluate Harvard’s admissions program under the standards of the Equal Protection Clause itself. "
Isn’t this just a logic error? Violating 14a and accepting federal funds-> violating title VI does not mean violating title VI and accepting federal funds -> violating 14a
I (and Roberts) may have phrased this a little confusedly. Essentially, the court has more or less interpreted the language of Title VI as co-extensive with the Equal Protection Clause, so to violate Title VI you have to engage in behavior that would violate the Equal Protection Clause if it was done by a state (even though this doesn't really make sense on the face of the statute).
I understand the conclusion, I’m saying it doesn’t follow from the justification
This blog post from 2015 isn't directly related to the current legal decision, but I think it's still pertinent and important to revisit (apologies to Mike if he's done this or looked at some of this literature and discussed it somewhere already). If affirmative action simply pays lip service, or worse, hides in that lip service, the statistics that it seems to have backfired (at least as of 2015), then it potentially makes the education and economic divide even greater.
"Affirmative action is before the Supreme Court again this week [2015], as it rehears arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas. (I’ve discussed the legal issues in Fisher here.)
But perhaps the most important question about racial preferences is one that’s not directly raised by the case: do they even work? Do they help underrepresented minorities to achieve their goals, and foster interracial interaction and understanding on elite campuses? Or do large preferences often “mismatch” students in campuses where they will struggle and fail?
Scholars began empirically studying the mismatch issue in the 1990s, but in the past five years the field has matured. There are now dozens of careful, peer-reviewed studies that find strong evidence of mismatch ...." https://fee.org/articles/how-affirmative-action-can-backfire/
You say: “Only the most extreme voices on the left (wokists) and right (white supremacists) want to keep admitting and hiring people based on skin color.”
It’s interesting that you compare or equate Affirmative Action (AA) with the hiring practises of the extreme right (i.e., White Supremacists), which I’ll label, for the purposes of this comment, as AAx (i.e. the extreme right’s version of AA).
I’m against AA because I’m against discrimination, and I think AA, in practise, has the unintended effect of perpetuating the historical injustice that it seeks to resolve. However, I think AA isn’t motivated for the same reasons as AAx.
If I’m not mistaken (I’m not a polisci or history major study) but AA seems like a form of reparation for slavery. And, I think a strong case can be made for reparations (I’m actually for reparations). But AAx is motivated because of the false belief that minorities are inferior to whites. So your comparison seems like an equivocation. (Or perhaps I’m just misinterpreting your point, apologies if so).
But let me just try to make a case for AA. You see, the ability for someone who is seriously economically and socially disadvantaged because of the legacy of slavery, is that they cannot even apply for education on a level playing ground, as those who haven’t been blighted by such a legacy. Consider the emerging phenomenon of “teenage scholars”, whose well to do parents can afford the exorbitant fees to publish in academic journals (among other services like tutoring, etc). This practise is thought to be a way that rich families game the system to ensure their continued presence is felt in institutions of education, governance, etc.
Now, can someone disadvantaged by the legacy of slavery compete with that, when applying to a top university? I don’t think so.
What I think can be done is that when two applications are being compared, the reviewer could discount the “scholarly” publications of the “teenage scholar” and then compare the applications on a level playing ground.
Maybe that’s not exactly AA but I think that’s what progress would look like.
Regarding reparations, see this post: https://fakenous.substack.com/p/reparations
Thanks. Yeah, Boonin makes some sense, but here’s something else to consider: Why think that mitigation applies only to the descendants of slaves, but not to the state? By now, the state has had many years since slavery was abolished to implement anti-racist policies and effect beneficial societal changes, something that racialized communities are still calling for.
So allow me to bring to your attention some stats that might show if such communities are actually a priority for the state. Unfortunately, this involves bringing up Trump’s social media activity.
So former President Trump apparently retweeted the following stats in an infographic, supposedly from the crime statistics bureau of San Francisco, USA CRIME STATISTICS 2015:
Blacks killed by Whites: ≈2%
Blacks killed by Police: ≈1%
Whites killed by Police: ≈3%
Whites killed by Whites: ≈16%
Whites killed by Blacks: ≈81%
Blacks killed by Blacks: ≈97%
But, Mike, there’s no such organization as the crime statistics bureau of San Francisco—it’s completely made up (including those stats).
Nonetheless, according to some, false stats like that may fuel a popular claim echoed in the words of journalist Rod Liddle (of The Sun newspaper in the UK): “there’s also no doubt whatsoever that the greatest danger to black people in the USA is…er…other black people. Black-on-black murders average more than 4000 each year. The number of black men killed by US cops - rightly or wrongly - is little more than 100 each year. Go on, do the math”
And messages like Liddle’s may fuel another popular view: that blacks are overreacting, and that it’s actually other black people they should be afraid of, not police officers. But as for Liddle’s challenge to “do the math”, some smart people called his bluff and actually did the math, so let’s see the results.
Firstly, here are the real figures about US Crime Statistics for 2015 that investigative journalists (of The Guardian newspaper) and mathematician Kit Yates compiled:
Blacks killed by Whites: ≈9%
Blacks killed by Police: ≈11%
Whites killed by Police: ≈16%
Whites killed by Whites: ≈81%
Whites killed by Blacks: ≈16%
Blacks killed by Blacks: ≈89%
Notice how the 81% and 16% percent figures near the bottom are flipped.
And, now let’s see whether the data actually support the claim that blacks should be more afraid of black people than police officers in the USA.
Numbers of killings 2015:
All killings, in which the victim was black: 2664
black-on-black murders: 2380 (so, fewer than what Liddle reported)
white-on-black: 229
officer-on-black: 307
All killings, in which the victim was white: 3167
black-on-white murders: 500
white-on-white: 2574
officer-on-white: 584
Notice how, despite being only ≈12% of the total population of the USA, black people make up something like 45% of victims. Isn’t the disproportionate number of black victims something the state would be interested to address?
Now to see if the claim that black people ought to fear other black people more than the police, but first a thought experiment by Kit Yates:
in 2015, toddlers shot and killed 21 US citizens while bears killed just two.
So, is it better to be left alone in a room with a bear or a toddler?
The intuition you’re supposed to have is that what really matters for assessing different dangers is not the absolute number of killings but the per capita rates, given the different total numbers of toddlers and bears in the US (and easy access to guns; due to the second amendment).
OK, so now let’s look at the per capita rates:
So black-on-black: 2380 divided by 40,242,818 (number of black people in the US)
And officer-on-black: 307 divided by 635,781 (number of officers in the US).
So, as Kit Yates put it, if you’re a black person walking in a dark alley and you see someone coming towards you, who should you be afraid of more, a black person or a police officer?
Well, the per capita killing rate of black-on-black is 1/16908 and the per capita killing rate of officer-on-black is 1/2071.
So much for Trump’s retweet and Liddle’s shameless blurb in The Sun (literally the UK’s, maybe the world’s, worst newspaper).
The most damning part of this is that the journalists found that the FBI, even up to 2015, didn’t keep accurate records of the ethnicities of people killed by cops.
So are racialized communities who make up like 45% of all victims in the US when they comprise only 12% of the population really a priority for the state? I don’t think so.
Anyway, I got all the above info from Kit Yates and I think, if it’s all correct, then it supports my point about mitigation, that the state doesn’t really care about the plight of racialized communities, so they should pay up, and everyone should support reparations.
According to these numbers, blacks killed by... sums to 109%. Lidell's numbers sum to 100%. So, either the Guardian is obviously wrong or else they are using phrases like "Blacks killed by whites" to mean something entirely different. Maybe: Of all people killed by whites, x% were Black." But if you're comparing two different types of numbers, you should make that clear.
It’s likely a typo, and the listed source for those numbers is actually the FBI; which, as I understand it, collected the data after The Guardian investigated the matter. The Liddle numbers are wrong (he claimed 4000 to 100, which wasn’t the case).
Something is definitely wrong. It would be good to see a reanalysis with correct numbers and with links so we can check for ourselves.
Oh, I see now where the confusion is. You mentioned Liddle’s numbers but you actually meant the numbers of the crime statistics bureau of San Francisco; which, again, are bogus, completely made up and that organization doesn’t even exist. I think the reason why the real numbers add up to more than 100 percent, is that the data of the officer category is double-counted by the ethnicity categories. That doesn’t seem so problematic, given that we were interested to know total officer shootings, but of course you could further categorize by the ethnicities of the officers. Hope that clarifies any earlier confusion.
Here’s a link to the stats referenced by Yates: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015/tables/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2015.xls
- I've never seen a teenage scholar with publications in an academic journal.
- You cannot get published in an academic journal by paying them money. I'm surprised that people think journals work like this (?). If you're talking about predatory journals, they're not going to help you get into college.
- Nor do you have to pay exorbitant fees to get published. Again, unless you're talking about bogus, predatory journals. This is not relevant to college admissions.
We can discuss reparations at a later time. But just on the legal issue, the law doesn't contain any exception clause like "unless your discrimination makes up for past discrimination".
Well, it is a recent phenomenon. Here’s an article about it https://www.propublica.org/article/college-high-school-research-peer-review-publications
"But let me just try to make a case for AA. You see, the ability for someone who is seriously economically and socially disadvantaged because of the legacy of slavery, is that they cannot even apply for education on a level playing ground, as those who haven’t been blighted by such a legacy. "
This doesn't explain why AA gives preferences to descendants of recent African/Hispanic immigrants. E.g. something like 40% of the Black students as some Ivy leagues are descendants of African immigrants.
AA only applies to the most selective institutions, whom are presumably not those most harmed by "racist" policies. Undoing AA will just shift black students from elite universities down towards where they belong in terms of their academic performance, which would be sub-elite but great schools.
This is a conceptual point, but it's not even clear what it means to "undo" the effects of racist policies. Racist policies have already happened and presumably people have already been victimized. It's not clear how giving advantages to already privileged black people (many of whom immigrated recently) "undoes" those policies.
Even if AA did in some way "undo" the effects of past racist policies, that still wouldn't make it justified. At best, AA would be neutral, since it would undo a past racist policy and replace it with a new racist policy. This would be like lynching a white person today to undo a lynching of a black person in the past. Even if we could "undo" alleged injustices in this way, that wouldn't justify imposing new injustices on innocents today.
Due to racial disparities in mobility, it's unlikely that AA has any meaningful impact on the aggregate socioeconomic standing of black people. As already stated, this only targets the most elite slice of black people.
But also, children of successful black parents tend to be disproportionately downwardly mobile, both economically and educationally. It is differences in mobility that is driving racial inequalities today (https://reasonwithoutrestraint.com/racial-disparities-in-intergenerational-mobility/). AA doesn't address the underlying causes of mobility differences, so it won't have any long-run impact on alleviating inequality.
Also, and probably most important, courts have explicitly ruled that colleges are not permitted to impose racial preferences to "rectify" or "undo" past racist policies, unless that particular institution was directly responsible for racist policies. Instead, the constitutional defenses of racial preferences has been based on the alleged benefits of diversity itself. I don't remember all the details, but the same author cites a few reviews of court cases in his blog post (https://reasonwithoutrestraint.com/racial-preferences-at-elite-american-universities/).
I think people think, without AA, there would be little to no black people who would be able to gain a college education due to entrenched racism. AA is then seen as this necessary tool of social mobility for black people to escape deep poverty and racism that would otherwise hold them back. In actuality, poor blacks are not helped at all by AA. In fact, the vast majority of blacks aren't helped because most blacks don't go to college and the vast majority aren't going to the selective colleges that would practice AA to begin with.
That's probably a critical (empirical) prior that explains liberal support for AA.
Another prior that I constantly hear is this: "race only is a factor as a tie-breaker. We only appeal to race when participants are similar on everything else". I don't know where this idea came from but it's just an outright lie at this point.
AA might be one of those cases where the best way to change someone's mind isn't to make explicitly moral or prescriptive arguments. Instead, we can just cover all of the relevant facts and I think most reasonable people will lose support for AA at least based on current implementation.
I also do not really understand why people support AA but then reject things like quotas. I don't really understand the principles that people appeal to when justifying racial discrimination in AA but not racial discrimination generally. Also, I don't know why people don't also support giving tax benefits to black people. This seems like (1) a much more direct way of benefiting black people (especially if you think economics are driving all of these disparities) and (2) would actually disproportionately benefit poor blacks. I honestly think support for AA is status quo bias. Why not have a program of giving first place in line to black people to public restrooms or water fountains or busses, on the rationale that black people were deprived in the past of timely access to services in general? Why not have affirmative action in sports, so that black people are ten times as likely to receive a spot on a soccer/lacrosse/cross country/track/etc. team with the same qualifications as a white person?
See this blog post: https://reasonwithoutrestraint.com/racial-preferences-at-elite-american-universities/
Support the status quo? No, I think it’s intended to have the opposite effect.
Suppose there’s a native tribe and settler population cohabiting a parcel of land. The settler population establishes a police force, which has authority over everyone. After many generations this police force continues to reflect (and serve the interests) of only the settlers and their descendants. Many, if not most, of the settlers don’t like the natives, who they think of as inferior savages. They even forcibly remove the children of the natives in an effort to “civilize” them by teaching them settler customs and religion. The natives demand change, and eventually the settlers promise that everyone will be treated equally under the law. Unfortunately, the police force continues to reflect (and serve the interests of) mainly the settlers and their descendants.
What do you think should happen to the police force?
Implementing a policy of AA is one way by which to break the cycle of reflecting and serving the interests of the settlers.
In Canada, a police department in Thunder Bay was actually disbanded because of systemic racism—intergenerational systemic racism!
Now, I don’t know how to fix such problems but I think indifference to the plight of segments of society is an unacceptable response.
"But AAx is motivated because of the false belief that minorities are inferior to whites."
Is that in fact a false belief? It seems pretty obvious to me that some races are better than others on average. I would like to see an actual argument (not just an assertion) that all races are equal,
Before you can make comparisons, you need to prove that different races exist. (Spoiler: they don’t!)
If Asian people don’t exist then the claim that Asian people are superior to other people is vacuously true. But I think actually Asian people do exist.