Principled Perspectives: Affirmative Action

Showing posts with label Affirmative Action. Show all posts

Thursday, April 18, 2019

Merit vs. ‘Affirmative’ Action

The college admission bribery scandal brought out the anti-capitalistic mentality of the New Jersey Star-Ledger. Its March 2019 editorial is titled College admissions scandal exposes a corrupt and broken system. The “system” does not refer to college admissions. The Star-Ledger wrote:

It is not news that the dullard scions of the wealthy are afforded the same educational benefits enjoyed by real scholars, who earned their way into prestigious colleges.

But the admissions scandal not only exposes how far parents will go to get their kids into elite schools. It reminds us that the correlation between merit and the just apportionment of rewards isn’t the bedrock American precept we claim it to be.

Still, who knew the new definition of affirmative action involved millionaire parents greasing the volleyball coach?

Apparently missing the extreme irony, the Star-Ledger then writes with a straight face:

Meanwhile, more qualified students who followed the rules were squeezed out.

For those who thought that giving special consideration to a deserving minority is a threat to the integrity of the admissions process, we’ll pause here for cognitive dissonance.

Apparently, it’s ok for more qualified students to be shut out for the sake of some other less qualified student labeled “deserving minority.” Apparently, it’s “far worse [that] Parents were paying to break the rules” by bribery versus by racism. What about these rules, which shut out “more qualified students” because of race or ethnicity? No answer. It’s just assumed that there is some fundamental difference between cheating by Affirmative Action and cheating by bribery. There is not. Both forms of affirmative action are wrong. I left these comments, edited for clarity:

This scandal is a case of the wrongdoing of the few, not the workings of some “master class” of “the rich.” To say it is is bigotry. Such language is the premise of racism applied to economics. Any kind of admission policy that results in “more qualified students who followed the rules [being] squeezed out,” whether based on racial “qualifications” or bribery, is corrupt.

We didn’t get to our material prosperity through cheating, but through the workings of a social system—capitalism, to the extent it is free to function—that, over time, allows rewards to follow value creation through individual merit and voluntary exchange. It’s ridiculous to say otherwise.

This scandal is not a result of “savage inequities”--not in the way it is meant in this editorial. The rush to condemn “the rich” for the college scandal is a primal appeal to ignorance, envy, resentment, hatred of achievement, and to anyone who wants to blame others for their own failures. Justice, not bigotry, should be our standard. Punish the guilty. It is immoral to condemn an entire group, whether by race or by level of wealth, for the wrongdoing of the guilty.

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

The Gadsden Flag: Racial ‘Harassment’ or Symbol of Liberty?

The Gadsden Flag, which features a rattle snake along with the words “Don’t Tread on Me,” is a symbol of the American colonies’ fight for independence against British imperial rule. The purpose of the fight for independence was to establish a new nation based upon individual rights and political equality.

Yet this symbol of freedom is the subject of an investigation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that could result in the symbol being declared a form of punishable racial harassment, according to The Washington Post. Why? Because a black federal employee identified by the pseudonym “Sheldon D.” complained that the man who designed the flag, Colonel Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina, was a “slave trader & owner of slaves.” Sheldon D. complained that he was “subjected . . . to discrimination on the basis of race (African American)” because “a coworker (C1) repeatedly wore a cap to work with an insignia of the Gadsden Flag.”

Is this complaint valid?

First, a little history. Colonel Gadsden was not the originator of either the rattlesnake symbol or the accompanying slogan “Don't Tread On Me.” Gadsden simply copied from a banner he stumbled across. The rattlesnake symbol actually traces back to Benjamin Franklin, who in 1751 used it in protest against Great Britain’s policy of releasing convicted criminals to the Americas.

The charge of racial harassment is wrong on three counts.

First, there is the First Amendment. Should the government have the power to ban political expressions simply because someone claims the expression as such constitutes harassment? It’s a dangerous road. The EEOC already started us down that road when it banned the private display of the Confederate Flag in the workplace. The Confederate Flag is offensive, at least to me. Actual harassment, of course, should not be tolerated. But “harassment” should not be stretched to form a cover for benign actions intended only for expression. The benign expression of an opinion through symbolism is free speech, not harassment, and the way to fight it is to use one’s own free speech rights to debate it, rebut it, and present better ideas, not demand the government ban it. Of course, private employers have the right to set their own rules about political advocacy. But that’s a power the government shouldn’t have and in fact is not a power granted to the government by the U.S. Constitution and explicitly forbidden by the First Amendment.

Second, Sheldon D’s understanding of its meaning is completely wrong-headed. The Gadsden Flag is a symbol of the fight for American Independence, the purpose of which was to establish freedom, the exact opposite of slavery. True, Gadsden’s evil activity as a slave trader totally contradicts the principles his flag stands for. But the hypocrisy of an individual does not negate ideas. Ideas stand on their own, not on the character of any individual, even if that individual is the originator of the idea. The meaning and validity of ideas stems from independent observation of reality. Was the fight for American Independence good or not? Are individual liberty and political equality good or not? Those are the only questions. Just as Thomas Jefferson as a slave owner does not negate the principles that “all men a created equal” possessing “certain unalienable rights” including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” so Colonel Gadsden as slave trader does not in any way negate the ideal of American Independence the Gadsden flag stands for.

Third, slavery and racism are two separate and distinct evils. Slavery can and has been virtually ubiquitous in human history, transcending race, nationality, and ethnicity. Sometimes one racial or ethnic group enslaved another racial or ethnic group, and sometimes not. But that could have more to do with economics than racism. And it wasn’t only whites enslaving blacks in America. For example, North African pirates once enslaved Europeans, and Arabs were leading African slave traders. Right here in America, there were black plantation owners in the South who owned white slaves before the Civil War. But it wasn’t primarily about race. At various times, as historian Thomas Sowell observes, “Europeans enslaved other Europeans, Asians enslaved other Asians, Africans enslaved other Africans, and indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere enslaved other indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere.” “This enshrinement of racism as an over-arching causal factor [of slavery],” Sowell observes, “accords far more with current instrumental agendas than with history”—in other words, it’s political, not historical fact.

Colonel Gadsden should rightly be condemned for his slave trading and slave owning. Given that Colonel Gadsden was a plagiarist, one might even demand the renaming of the Gadsden Flag to more accurately reflect its origins. Perhaps the “Franklin Flag” or the “Independence Flag?” But even if Gadsden originated and designed the flag, it still remains true that the Gadsden Flag is a symbol of liberty, not slavery and certainly not racism.

Some compare the Gadsden Flag to the Confederate Flag. Unlike the Confederate Flag, the Gadsden Flag stands not for slavery or racism, but for the principles of individualism that stand in direct opposition to slavery and racism, and of the Revolution to establish those principles in practice. The Confederate Flag was a symbol of an agrarian slave culture and of the willingness of the Southern secessionist states to tear apart the United States of America in order to protect that culture. The Gadsden Flag stands for liberty and an America united against tyranny.

The comparison of the Gadsden Flag with the Confederate Flag is 180 degrees dead wrong. To oppose the symbol featuring the rattlesnake and the “Don’t Tread on Me” slogan is to oppose liberty—what does it mean to be a slave, if not to be “tread on” in the most egregious ways—and to put oneself in the position of the Oceania dupes of George Orwell’s 1984 who mindlessly regurgitate the slogan, “Freedom is Slavery.” Not to mention that it is cowardly and counterproductive to one’s own viewpoints to silence someone you disagree with rather than challenge those beliefs openly. I’d much rather the Confederate Flag be displayed openly so I can expose, oppose, and defeat the evil it stands for than have its defenders not face intellectual scrutiny. In fact, I’d counter the Confederate Flag with the Gadsden Flag. It’s a perfect counterpoint. Rather than be offended, Sheldon D. should be celebrating the symbol of anti-slavery and be supportive of people who openly promote liberty with such symbols.

Of course, all of this may miss the point. The Gadsden Flag has been mainly adopted as a rallying cry against “big government” by libertarian, conservative, and “Tea Party” groups. These groups, though disparate even sometimes to the point of incoherence and hypocrisy, generally stand in opposition to the Democratic Left. A cynic can be excused for suspecting that the attack on the Gadsden Flag is nothing more principled than a sleazy Obama Administration or Democratic Party smear tactic to aid Hillary Clinton by painting her political opposition as a bunch of racists. (Not to mention that there is plenty of racism on the American Left, which supports race-based quotas under “affirmative action,” celebrates racial diversity as an end in itself—two thoroughly racist concepts—and has as one of its “progressive” founders the segregationist racist Woodrow Wilson.) Worse, the attack may be part of the Left’s attack on liberty generally, as individual rights and political equality stand as bulwarks against statism and statists everywhere. If so, the American Right should meet the challenge head on. We on the political Right should call the Gadsden attack for what it is: an indication of the Left’s disdain for individual freedom—which would actually be quite accurate.

Whether the emerging enemies of the Gadsden Flag are motivated by politics or misplaced sincerity, the flag should be judged on the merits of the ideals it stands for. Those ideals are liberty over slavery, and individualism over racism. We must defend the Gadsden Flag symbolism because freedom is worth fighting for. It’s one of the icons that capture the essence of America—individual rights and political equality. More fundamentally, we must defend political expression. When intellectual discourse disappears, violent aggression must necessarily follow. It’s either-or; reason or guns. We must always choose reason. Those are principles that should unite all Americans.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

SCOTUS "Affirmative Action" Decision is a Small Victory for Justice and Individual Rights

After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Michigan's constitutional amendment banning race as a consideration in college admissions, a NJ Star-Ledger letter writer called the Supreme Court affirmative action ruling a setback because the elimination of race-based affirmative action programs "reverts society to a paradigm of affirmative action for those already on the inside":

People with access to education make more money, help their children do better in school and thus gain access to schools that are affordable for the family.

This letter writer apparently believes that the success of some comes at the expense of others, that educational advancement is a zero-sum game, and that the only way to "even the score" for the losers is to screw the winners; i.e., deny "access to education" for people who earn that access through merit in favor of those with the correct skin color:

Affirmative action programs may be imperfect, but their absence reverts society to a paradigm of affirmative action for those already on the inside.
Only those deeply entrenched in, and benefiting from, the status quo could fail to see otherwise.

This is rubbish, of course. Affirmative action is government coercion. Removing affirmative action removes coercion. It does not shift the coercion in others’ favor. But his statement about "affirmative action for those already on the inside" rings true in a different context.

I left these comments:

Racial preferences, and the collectivist premise behind them, are racist, pure and simple. It's incredible to me that, in the 21st Century, there are still people who defend this primitive practice. The Michigan law that the Court upheld was a victory against racism. One would think the Court's decision would be universally applauded.

If you really want to fight back against "a paradigm of affirmative action for those already on the inside," the place to start is with government policies that do just that.

Minimum wage laws benefit older, experienced workers at the expense of younger, less skilled, and less experienced individuals, for whom the lower rungs of the "economic ladder" are kicked out by killing the lower-paying jobs that would otherwise be available to them.

Occupational licensure laws create state-sanctioned cartels that deny otherwise qualified individuals from entering the licensed field. Currently, more than 1100 occupations across the nation require government licensure (permission) before a person can earn a living in one of those fields.

Compulsory unionization laws freeze out non-union individuals in numerous fields.

In each of these examples, an economic clique is "deeply entrenched" on the "inside", [legally shielded, at least partially] from competition by those legally frozen out.

The only truly affirmative action we can take is to increase the liberty of people to work, trade, and contract with others by removing these and other legal and regulatory roadblocks to economic advancement. Denying otherwise qualified individuals entrance to a college because of the color of his skin was always a step backwards, morally as well as legally. The SCOTUS decision, as narrow as it was, is a welcome victory for justice and individual rights.

The Michigan constitutional amendment applies only to "public"—government owned and funded—universities. Such universities should not exist, because they violate the rights of taxpayers not to fund these schools if they choose not to. Fully private universities would, of course be free to establish whatever criteria for entry they deem appropriate, even as outrageous as basing admission on skin color.

But since taxpayers do fund these schools, they have a right to determine admission standards. The problem is, "the public" can only determine those standards by majority vote. This means that the rights of the voting minority who support race-based admissions policies, whose taxes also support these government universities, are being violated. Such conflicts of rights are inherent in government schools. In a fully free education market, where government and education are separate, no such conflicts could arise.