And so the long-awaited backlash against political correctness begins.

Unfortunately, it'll never catch on in the culture of academe. It comes from the outside, and thus is inherently evil. Worse, it will be seen as simply being a case of The Man coming in to keep the People down.

Too bad. I fought against the PC Army for my entire college years. Never got anywhere, but it was a satisfying hobby.

Am I missing something? Minority scholarships have been around for quite awhile. Granted, that pisses me off, but what makes these different?

No white male graduate student left behind ... that was the promise before the election, right? Er, wasn't it?

If you've got a situation where members of one group are terribly under-represented in an area, and you try to take positive measures to correct that situation, and someone else forbids that correction -- then, yes, it is the person getting in the way of improving things who is being divisive. When a situation is itself divisive, then lobbying -- or suing -- for the status quo is a divisive act.

Um, "Philosopher", if you decide that what matters about people is the color of their skin, rather than their individual abilities, then you are a racist.

If a program benefits people because of the color of their skin, rather than because of their individual abilities, then the program is racist.

If "Jim Crow" was wrong (and I believe it was), then these scholarship are equally wrong.

Unless, of course, your claim is that Jim Crow was wrong because it hurt blacks, rather than being wrong because it was racist.

If you're making the later arguement, then what you're whining about is whose ox is getting gored, rather than any matter of principle.

If racism isn't wrong as a matter of principle, well you've just dumped the entire justification for Civil Rights laws.

The difference is that Southern Illinois University receives federal financial assistance. You're probably thinking of private organizations. Private monies such as the United Negro College Fund can be "blacks only"

SEC. 601. No 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.

Philosopher,

You seem to have left a lot out. For example, how do you define positive measures? I fail to see how a financial reward based solely on race, rather than merit or income, is positive. How does it improve over the "status quo"?

How do you define underrepresented? Are Asians underrepresented in Congress? Are men underrepresented as elementary school teachers?

In fact men are underrepresented as undergrads.

Editor's Note: Per the commenter's request, this comment has been removed.

"Um, "Philosopher", if you decide that what matters about people is the color of their skin, rather than their individual abilities, then you are a racist."

No--you're an illiterate. That's not what phil said at all; what he said, in fact, was that redressing past (and, possibly, present) systemic injustices might require targeted actions. Phil is not suggesting, for instance, that Blacks are inherently less able (or more capable) to succeed in science than Whites--he is suggesting instead that the legacy of anti-Black discrimination can be addressed properly through the use of scholarships such as SIU's, and moreover that people who are opposed to such policies are, themselves, part of the problem.

Reasonable people could debate the last bit of the argument (although after a while, and on many issues, reasonable people don't). But drawing nice distinctions is part of logical thinking, and hence a requisite for rational (and, therefore, for ethical) action...and many comments on this topic, here and elsewhere and on both sides of the debate, demonstrate a lack of appreciation for or capability to exercise those powers.

Given the debate above about integrating minorities into The System, and given France's natural experiment in denying people a stake in that system, most arguments in this thread against phil's position are singularly poorly timed.

Some thoughts:

1) SIU is a public university and is (at least in part) using public funds for these programs.

2) Women are most certainly not underrepresented in graduate school. While there are certain programs dominated by men (economics, physics, engineering), there are others dominated by women (education, pyschology, literature). If you look at the total numbers of PhDs or non-professional Master degrees, I understand that women receive the majority.

3) In the Michigan case, the Supreme court said that additional points for minorities (just because they were minorities) was not permissible. Race could only be used as "part of the story."

4) While these programs might have been prevalent 6 years ago, I doubt that they are now. SIU is a bit of a backwater school. I would assume that more cutting edge universities would have reviewed and adjusted their AA policies after the Michigan case. SIU may have been just more lax on this point.

5) As an Illinois resident, I have long had my doubts about Barrack Obama. While he seems like a decent guy, deep down I had a fear that he was knee-jerk in his policy views. It appears that my fears might be right.

MnZ

No, Paul, I'm a person who doesn't try to change the meanings of words to suit my political biases.

what he said, in fact, was that redressing past (and, possibly, present) systemic injustices might require targeted actions.

And in "redressing" those past wrongs you are doing to innocent people exactly the same thing that you are complaining about.

That's not justice, that's just playing "let's see whose ox gets gored." If it was wrong when it was done to the blacks, then it's equally wrong when it's done "for" the blacks, and to the whites and asians, all of whom were too young to have done any of the discrimination you are supposedly "correcting".

France shows what happens when you have a socialist system that doesn't allow people to fail, and therefore doesn't allow people to succeed. It also shows what happens when you don't integrate people into your society.

Which is to say, it shows the perils of dividing people on "racial" lines. Which is exactly what you and Phil are supporting.

How many proponents of affirmative action (or similar policies/programs) are also proponents of racial profiling by cops?

Aren't both of these practices simply 'playing the averages'? A race/sex-based admissions program would give favor to the daughter of Bill Cosby over a while kid from the hills of Appalachia. While few would defend this hypothetical practice, they don't seem to care that much about the inherent fault.

Frankly, I think SCOTUS got it right that any law giving preference for something other than a reasonable determination of merit is a violation of the 14th amendment -- even if they found that we had a compelling interest to ignore that particular amendment for another 25 years.

Paul -- as a matter of law you cannot remedy past discrimination by imposing new bits of discrimination. If Blacks have been subject to discrimination in the past; you can't "fix the problem" by discriminating against white men, or Asians. Financial assistance has to be open to ALL, by law, for any institution taking money from the federal government.

Thought experiment: University B in state C has found "too many" African Americans enrolled in science classes, and offers financial assistance ONLY for white men. It's as legally objectionable as the above case.

Moreover, the winner-loser case of financial assistance is bad politics. White Men will quite reasonably assume that Women and African Americans are favored over them by the State and will react accordingly to their economic interest. It's a strong signal that "no white men need apply" with predictable political results. Particularly any white man with a son approaching college age can be counted upon to vote Republican as a result of this issue. Dems ought to smack Obama up the head and make him side with the Bush Admin. on this case.

Greg D wrote: "If "Jim Crow" was wrong (and I believe it was), then these scholarship are equally wrong."

This is a moral judgement I really have trouble understanding, but that I see frequently. Action which discriminates slightly to help a group considered to be underrepresented/disadvantaged is equated to discriminatory action done in a blanket way to make an already underrepresented/disadvantaged group more so.

The actual degree of harm being done by the particular discriminator action, as compared to the benefit gained, is ignored.

In the case of Jim Crowe laws, blacks were effectively excluded from the political process. In the case of SIU's policy, the percentage of non-Black or Hispanic grad students changes by, at most, 8% (that's how many black and hispanic students, total, are at SIU).

But to folks like Greg, an 8 percent reduction (at most) in non-minority grad students at SIU is "just as wrong" as total exclusion of blacks from the political process. That's totally lacking in perspective. I don't get it ... unless they just can't stand the possibility that maybe otherwise-disadvantaged minorities might have one little advantage for a change. Then it would make sense.

"White Men will quite reasonably assume that Women and African Americans are favored over them by the State and will react accordingly to their economic interest. It's a strong signal that "no white men need apply" with predictable political results."

Ridiculous. Only a few Whites will be affected, and these will be marginal anyway. What is more likely is that a large number of relatively untalented White men will resent the miniscule number of minority students who benefit, even though the actual harm they will have suffered is almost nil.

"France shows what happens when you have a socialist system that doesn't allow people to fail, and therefore doesn't allow people to succeed. It also shows what happens when you don't integrate people into your society."

This is ridiculous. Allowing competitive but targeted scholarships amply allows people to fail, and in any event they will have to succeed in a competitive system within and outside of academe. (For the poster who mentioned McWhorter: You should know, as he writes in "Authentically Black" --I think--that McW himself acknowledges the advantages he received in building his career from minority set-asides.)

In addition, the comparison with France falls flat on its face. Government programs will not inevitably lead to the creation of entrenched poverty and hostility to the state--the French case is more complicated than that. Instead, as in Germany (or, indeed, as in all modern states since 1789), government programs can be used to bind the community more closely together in some ways. (Think of the great nation-building institutions like the mass army or the public school.)

"How many proponents of affirmative action (or similar policies/programs) are also proponents of racial profiling by cops? Aren't both of these practices simply 'playing the averages'? A race/sex-based admissions program would give favor to the daughter of Bill Cosby over a while kid from the hills of Appalachia. While few would defend this hypothetical practice, they don't seem to care that much about the inherent fault."

Silliest of all. First, it is exceptionally easy to bring class back in to admissions program, and recent SCOTUS decisions (and common sense) would seem to require that. Second, the comparison with racial profiling is unconvincing. In racial profiling, the only possible defense for the crude screening device of outward markers of "race" is that the police lack any other indications of intent and character. In a scholarship/fellowship application process, a great deal more information is available--and because these programs are competitive, rewards are never made because so-and-so is Black. Third, the net effect of affirmative action programs is to give African-Americans a stake in the system; the net effect of racial profiling is to alienate them from officialdom. The former is desirable, the latter not.

Let's distinguish three different questions about such policies:
(1) can they be ethically justified at all?
(2) can they be constitutional?
(3) can they be good policy?

The whole 'it's just like Jim Crow!' thing sounds like it's aimed at the first question; and I took JC's initial accusation of divisiveness to be of type (1) as well (though it may have been of type (3); but see below).

But really (1) is the easiest question to answer, and the answer is 'yes': when the existing situation is one that is itself systematically unjust to one race, then policies that aim to address that existing injustice may -- indeed, probably must -- be framed at least in part in racial terms. (I definitely think it more appropriate to consider AA policies as about correcting current injustices, not compensating for past ones, for reasons not too far from Jim's.) If there are such existing conditions of systematic racial injustice, then those not of the marked race are already receiving an unjust racial preference; and an AA policy may simply be serving to diminish that unfair preference. If I already have a higher chance of getting a job than you merely because I am white and you are black, then a policy to defeat that unfair advantage may be stated in terms of black and white, but it is not thereby unfair to me: it is making the system fair to you. (Or, more likely, just less unfair.)

So, check all the comparisons to Jim Crow at the door, please, along with thought-experiments about 'too many' blacks, etc. Such cases are just beside the point, because they are missing the absolutely basic premise of the case for AA: that there is an existing injustice that needs to be rectified.

(If the thought-experiment was one in which we changed the entire history of our society in a way that flips black and white -- like the movie White Man's Burden -- then it would be relevant, and 'anti-black' AA policies would be potentially justified in such a hypothetical society. Based on what little I know about it, it may be that such policies would be justified in Trinidad. So there's nothing intrinsic about black, white, brown, etc. here. It's about the current situation with regard to social justice.)

Now, so far I have framed this as a conditional: if there is a currently existing situation of racially-based injustice, then AA policies are ethically justifiable. We might disagree about the status of the antecedent; though I must confess that I would be willing to accuse anyone who would reject that antecedent as either naive or willingly blind. But that's not the topic at hand. I'm just defending the conditional (1).

Question (2) is, I suppose, something that we'll have a SCOTUS case before too long, following this suit by the government. At a minimum, I'd wager we'll get a revised fellowship program where race is a significant positive factor; which is something that the courts have held so far to be acceptable, so long as sufficient individual attention to applicants is paid.

Question (3) I am more agnostic on. As you can tell, I still think that many AA policies are fully ethically justifiable today. Some are not -- as noted, women now outnumber men in undergraduate admissions, and so it's probably not justifiable to give women a boost in general undergraduate admissions. But it may still be appropriate to do so for particular fields or professions. But it nonetheless may not be good policy. Some AA policies may end up producing 'bidding wars' on minority candidates who come from privileged backgrounds, without really addressing the fundamental inequalities that the policies are supposed to address. Some AA policies may produce both too much resentment among the groups they locally disfavor, and too much self-doubt among the groups that they favor. (Perhaps this is the divisiveness that JC had in mind? Maybe. But then there is an air of self-fulfilling prophecy about such complaints: if I, a white man, will simply refuse to accept AA policies, then I can thereby make myself a piece of data to be used against such policies. I would worry that the intransigence of a group that is benefiting from the status quo should not generally be allowed to serve as a reason not to change that situation.) And there may just be better, more efficient ways of achieving the same goals. I am inclined to think that some targeted uses of AA are still the best policy options that we have in our arsenal for addressing systematic racial inequality, especially in education, and especially in ways that open doors that would not otherwise be opened. So these fellowships strike me still as probably a good idea. For starters, they have a significant merit component, so no one can complain that the recipients are undeserving; and I believe that the recipients have to get admitted into the program in the first place, and so their receiving the fellowship is not a matter of taking a slot in a program that was 'meant' for someone else. But there are lots of practical considerations that come into a policy decision, and thus make things much more mootable, than come into the basic ethical questions like (1).

Greg D wrote: "If "Jim Crow" was wrong (and I believe it was), then these scholarship are equally wrong."
This is a moral judgment I really have trouble understanding, but that I see frequently.

Well, then let me explain it:

To start with, you have to answer this question: Why was Jim Crow "wrong"?

Was it wrong because it hurt black people (that would be the "underrepresented minority" position), or was wrong because it hurt people based on an illegitimate distinction ("race")?

(Note: we hurt people based upon legitimate distinctions all the time: see any merit-based reward, and all the people who didn't get the reward.)

To go with the former explanation is to destroy the "universal appeal" of civil rights. Instead of attacking racism, it enshrines it. Instead of worrying about the "content of people's character", it enshrines concerns about the color of their skin. It says that skin color does matter, that people of different "races" are different (since if they are the same, it doesn't matter what colors of people are "represented", all that matters is that you got the best available individuals).

To go with the latter explanation invalidates all programs based up on "race", no matter who they help, no matter who they hurt.

To sum up: saying "it's wrong to hurt people just because they're black" is an appeal to fairness.

Adding, as you do, "but it's ok to help them just because they're black" eliminates the fairness issue, and simply makes it a matter of special pleading.

If I'm going to countenance that, I'm going to countenance it when it helps me, not when it hurts me.

Do you really want to go back to that kind of society?

The action of the Department of Justice simply highlights one of many fronts through which Southern Illinois University discriminates. It's ok to be a student organization at the SIU School of Law, so long as you don't assert your 1st Amendment right to free expression of religion. Fortunately for those who value thier Constitutional rights, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals spanked the University with the grant of the Christian Legal Society's motion for preliminary injunction. (pdf of the order)

Liberal Illinois Senator Barack Obama accuses the Bush administration of trying to divide voters.

Obama's political hackery is showing. You can't address any political injustice without being divisive.

The subtle, but very significant, mistake in Greg D's post is its understanding of "harm" as simply "anything that does bad by someone; or indeed just does better by someone else". This was clearest in this snippet:
(Note: we hurt people based upon legitimate distinctions all the time: see any merit-based reward, and all the people who didn't get the reward.)

This is not a useful way of construing harm, and it leads to the mistaken conclusion that doing well by one person but not by another person, at least partly on the basis of race, is automatically wrong.

Rather, a more ethically appropriate notion of harm would involve taking something from someone when they had a right to that which you took from them; or, more generally, injuring them when they had a right not to be injured. But not everything that makes you worse off, or even just comparatively worse off, is in this sense a harm. For we may be taking something from you that you had no right to -- if the bank accidentally deposits an extra $20 in your account that does not belong to you, it would be silly to say that the bank is 'harming' you by taking the $20 back. (It may have done a harm to you by confusing your bookkeeping, but that is a separate issue.) It is even sillier to say that, e.g., I have been unfairly singled out for harm on the arbitrary basis of my account number. I may not have sought out the $20 illicitly, but my possession of it was not something I had a right to, and I am not harmed by having it removed from my possession.

Similarly, if I now have an unjust, undeserved, unearned competitive advantage over you, then it is silly to say that I am 'harmed', if we take measures to redress that unfair advantage. We are not harming me; we are removing a harm from you. And, if the basis of that initial unfair distribution of advantages is racial, then a racial form of remedy may well be required, and at a minimum is ethically permissible. I may not have sought any advantage based on my whiteness, but it is nonetheless an advantage that I have in today's society, and it does not harm me if society takes measures to remove that unfair advantage I have over my competitors of different races.

Frankly, Terry - the University was correct in being suspicious of a "christian" organization whose apparent sole focus was in denying gay students participation in the organization. Since religious belief, a "lifestyle CHOICE," is protected by the Constitution, that selective cafeteria "christianity" was protected. However, that doesn't mean, in my mind, that these people are really christians - only that they claim to be. . .

Moreover, that legal decision seems to indicate that gay law students could, in return, organize a gay legal student group and exclude "christians" of that particular belief because they do not meet the religious tenets of the gay groups biblical interpretations, so the sword can cut both ways.

As for the anti-white racism, perhaps we need to ask a few fundamental questions here:

1) Are white males demographically a minority?

2) Does that minority constitute a demographically disproportionate representative number in university programs, public positions and in governmental bodies that make those decisions?

3)Is that disproportionate representation of hetero white males characteristic of government positions in which their selection is based solely on their personal qualifications?

I think the answers are rather obvious.

After 30-some years, if affirmative action programs have not effectively remediated the effects of past discrimination, I do not hold any hope that they will do so in the future. In fact, I'm pretty sure we've reached the point where the problems of AA equal or outweigh the benefits.

I question whether a poor black child is really at a greater disadvantage today than a white child born in similar circumstances. Furthermore, AA programs reinforce a notion (in the minds of minorities as in the minds of whites) that minorities can't make it by themselves. I'd bet that a large majority of whites, when they see a minority in an appointed position, are thinking "affirmative action."

Finally and most basically, two wrongs never make a right. If, as some commenters have argued, whites are only "marginally" harmed by racial preferences, that is only because they are the demographic majority, so the harm is diluted. If I got a law passed granting a free taxpayer-funded college education for all Seymours, the harm to everyone else would be miniscule. But that hardly makes it a just proposition.

Philosopher, your explanation does not work unless we can assume that affirmative action programs put specific individuals back, at least roughly, where they would have been if not for racism. Otherwise, it is just a statistical remedy. If someone from Tennessee takes the $20 from someone from Kentucky, and we try to fix that by taking $20 from a Tennessean in order to give it to someone from Kentucky, that does create some kind of impression of fairness, but this is justice only if the remedy is applied to the same two people.

It could be argued that if most of the people in Tennessee took $20 from most of the people in Kentucky, then you'll get more hits than misses if we reverse it and transfer $20s from Tennesseans to Kentuckians (not knowing who actually had gained or lost $20s before), but the same logic only applies to affirmative action if a significant portion of the people who are eligible to gain or lose something to traditional racism or affirmative action actually do. Otherwise, we could make the transfer, but unless we know whose $20s we're returning, only by coincidence will we return them to the people who lost them.

What we know now is that the actions in our own nation's past were unjust - and perhaps there is no perfect remedy for that situation. However, if justice is the goal here, then we must look at the disproportionate position of white males in positions of power. And we either need to accept that this is a remnant of that unjust social past which stigmatized other minorities and women, or that we believe the people who achieve these positions are naturally more talented and qualified.

We all know better than that. One reason we know better is because we have sought programs like this to address a much larger issue - and that is rampant cronyism, both in private and public life. When opportunities for success are offered over a golf game or because of membership in a specific church or because my daddy knows so-and-so, then those of any race who are outside that circle will always have limited access.

In my opinion, this is often where conservatives fall on their faces when they rage against the welfare state. While they raise legitimate points about the cycle of government-dependent poverty, they resist any examination of the welfare system that exists for unqualified people who just happen to socialize with the right folks.

"While they raise legitimate points about the cycle of government-dependent poverty, they resist any examination of the welfare system that exists for unqualified people who just happen to socialize with the right folks."

This is one of the stronger arguments for affirmative action in higher education....

The power of that argument is still limited to dealing with the extent to which members of "overrepresented" groups inside the circle are generally more willing to bring other members of that overrepresented group into the circle than they are to do the same for members of underrepresented groups. Otherwise, it is still just a statistical remedy, not something that increases opportunities for underrepresented people generally to what they would have had if bias had not kept underrepresented people of the past out of the circles of the past.

If overrepresented people in the circle tend to know a disproportionate number of overrepresented people, and they try to help people who they know, then that would help specific overrepresented people (statistically, it would appear to give overrepresented people an advantage over underrepresented people), and gives those individuals an advantage over underrepresented people (and overrepresented people who do not have "connections").

If there were suddenly more underrepresented people in the circle, and if they knew more underrepresented people than an overrepresented person in the circle would, and if the underrepresented people in the circle, like their overrepresented counterparts, try to help people who they know, then the affirmative action would benefit the specific underrepresented people who they help. It would not open the circle to underrepresented people in general, though, other than to whatever extent the overrepresented people had generally favored overrepresented people over underrepresented people (and only then if the affirmative action members of the circle were treated as true members of the circle, which I hope would be the case).

It's interesting you've dropped the justice argument in this case, especially because it's weakest here--the overrepresented are abundant not because of talent, but because of connections, which are no more just than inherited wealth.

You miss, however, the larger point: these connections are not simply baubles, but are deeply affective, and condition the ability both of the privileged and the un- to shape their life's course. And the unprivileged but talented granted the ability to make the important connections (with better professors, say, or simply with the sons of the rich) will likely be taking the places of the privileged but untalented, and so society will show an undeniable gain as careers become open to talents. (It might, of course, be easier in theory to simply adopt name-blind as well as race-blind admissions, and this is the ideal, but postponing questions of justice to the long run overlooks the famous point that in the long run we are all dead.)

It matters, as the French example shows, whether the ruling classes and the ruled are absolutely separated, or whether there is some path to move from one to another; elite mobility is no less important than mass mobility in this case.

Eric is wrong that his suggestion that Blacks and Whites in the same economic position are equally disadvantaged undermines the stated rationales for some sort of redress. First, even if individual Blacks and Whites are equally disadvantaged when given equal resource endowments, this says nothing about the systemic disparities betweens Blacks and Whites--there are disproportionately more Blacks disadvantaged than Whites.

Second, allow me to take my cue from Chris Rock, who once said that "There's no white person in this audience who would trade places with me--and I'm rich!" As long as we postulate some measure of racism that acts against Blacks, the Seymour proposition, simply stated, is wrong.

Third, it's surprising that an avowed cultural conservative of Seymour's general leanings would write, essentially, that economic circumstances determine social opportunities more than cultural factors; if so, why were (White) Republicans so upset about the culture of poverty welfare engendered? Bringing culture back in clears this up--"culture" both in the sense of the mainstream and the in-group phenomenon--but once again undercuts Seymour's point. If we allow, for instance, that noneconomic matters such as having married parents, families that value education, or living in relatively stable neighborhoods affect opportunitites, then comparing the circumstances of Whites and Blacks by looking at their economic factors becomes impossible.

Karl's other example about the Kentuckians and the Tennesseans points out two important facts. First, as Karl must know, this implies (rightly) a high burden on those seeking affirmative action or similar programs, because even straight transfer programs involve a loss of utility if all agents value resources equally; affirmative action will only work when those receiving opportunities value them more highly than those who are losing them, and there must be a strong presumption that such a transfer will not happen voluntarily. Secondly, as Karl's model shows us, we must make sure that such transfers are not arbitrary (as the Kentucky-Tennessee example is); that is why the concept of historical (or contemporary) injustice is so important--otherwise we would have a societal utility loss and no particular reason for it (i.e., like farm subsidies).

After 30-some years, if affirmative action programs have not effectively remediated the effects of past discrimination, I do not hold any hope that they will do so in the future. There's this very odd style of argument that one sees on occasion, mostly on the right but sometimes on the left as well, where one cocks an eyeball at some number and says, 'well, that's clearly just too high/low', in circumstances where a moment's reflection should reveal that one should put little trust in one's cocky eyeball on the matter at hand. E.g., one looks at some line of the budget and says, "we're clearly spending too much on education/health care/foreign aid/defense/etc", when it should be obvious that most of us are ill-equipped to decide how much is the right amount. Are we spending too much of our GDP on health care? Well, how much is the right amount for a post-industrial economy to spend on one of its most valuable goods, in one of the sectors of the economy that remains incredibly labor-intensive? There may be an answer to be found -- e.g., by a careful comparison to the health care expenditures of other nations who get similar outcomes -- but the cocky eyeball is not the way to find them.

Similarly, I have no idea how one can come rationally to decide that 30 years is enough time for AA to have done whatever good it might do. That's less than two generations, and at the beginning of that time there was still rampant racism in the country, and now there's still plenty of racism, though I do believe it is generally more quiescent. (Note that I don't think that AA is meant to end racism; rather, my claim is that while AA is operating within a society that is still to some extent actively stacking the deck against various minorities, it would be ludicrous to expect it to have eliminated the results of all past deck-stacking.) We have seen real gains in minority representation in key fields over this time, and we know that we're not where we want to be yet. That is prima facie evidence of programs that are working, but haven't finished their jobs. There may be real empirical arguments to be made against AA's effectiveness -- but Eric's cocky eyeball is not one of them.

Furthermore, AA programs reinforce a notion (in the minds of minorities as in the minds of whites) that minorities can't make it by themselves. I'd bet that a large majority of whites, when they see a minority in an appointed position, are thinking "affirmative action.". I acknowledge this point earlier, and it may at the end of the day be a practical (question (3)) reason not to continue with AA. But of course if various commentators (and I don't mean to single Eric out here) would stop making patently silly anti-AA arguments, and if leaders of the GOP would stop trying to score political points by drumming up feelings of white oppression, then perhaps these feelings of racial resentment would fade a bit.

Finally and most basically, two wrongs never make a right. If, as some commenters have argued, whites are only "marginally" harmed by racial preferences, that is only because they are the demographic majority, so the harm is diluted. Who has made this argument here? I just gave the thread a quick scan, and I must've missed it. Certainly nothing I said is of this sort, nor Paul, nor Kevin, nor Phil.

As for Karl: your argument only applies to justifications of AA based on compensation of past injustices, which I said above is not what I take to be the best way to justify AA. (The $20 example was just to defuse Greg's mistake about "hurt".) If we're eliminating a current unjust array of goods, when the unjust nature of that array is at least somewhat on a racial basis, then there's nothing wrong with using a racial basis to restore it.

Moreover, it's important to note just how innocuous the scholarships are, in these terms. The minority candidates are taking no 'slots' that might otherwise have gone to a white candidate; no specific individual white person is being forced to pay the minority candidate's tuition; and it is not awarded purely on the basis of race, but on demonstrated merit, including the overcoming of hardships -- with such fellowships, we as a society are choosing to help some people who obviously have been unfairly disadvantaged. To claim that our failing to help some others who have no similar claim at systematic disadvantage is doing a wrong by them is vacuous. (I would be all for a much broader set of class-based fellowships as well, and would be happy to hear conservatives call for a radical increase in the amount of spending on such programs.)

Frankly, Terry - the University was correct in being suspicious of a "christian" organization whose apparent sole focus was in denying gay students participation in the organization.

Please cite where exactly the Christian Legal Society states that this is thier "sole focus." I'll give you a hint: they never did, nor does this "sole focus" ever appear in thier statement of faith. This said, the last line of the statement of faith identifies the Bible as the "inspired word of God," meaning that the CLS doesn't believe God was just kidding when his set forth moral prohibitions, one among the hundreds including a prohibition against homosexual conduct (but not the status of homosexuality itself). Since this is a political and not a religious blog, I'll leave it to other pundits to argue the propriety of Levitican moral codes in today's world.

Kevin, this case began during the fall of 2004 when a female 3rd year law student, self-described agnostic, lesbian, and champion of homosexual rights, filed a complaint with the law school. Her complaint alleged that the CLS@SIU chapter discriminated against her by requring thier members to swear or affirm to uphold the CLS statement of faith, including it's provision that the Bible is the inspired word of God. She contended this requirement (belief in the Bible as the inspired word of God) by the Christian Legal Society was defacto discriminatory (given the above-stated moral prohibitions in the Bible), and sought redress by the law school. Ironically, she never attended a meeting all semester (membership is not required to attend meetings - it is only required to vote for officers once a year), nor did she express a desire to establish a less-orthodox Christian law student organization (which makes sence given her views on religion). This complaint, if brought in any court in America, would have immediately been tossed out under the doctrine of standing. However, the law school moved on the complaint and de-recognized the student organization under the university's affirmative action statement, which prohibits discrimination in employment and educational oppourtunities. Ironically, the CLS chapter neither employed anyone nor provided an educational oppourtnity.

I believe there is a difference between the words inspired and literal - which again points to a cafeteria selection of biblical moral points. Obviously, the "Christian" Legal Society can't literally subscribe to all of Leviticus moral codes without breaking established laws.

Eric is wrong that his suggestion that Blacks and Whites in the same economic position are equally disadvantaged undermines the stated rationales for some sort of redress.

Paul is wrong if he is arguing from a conservative point of view. Individualism is a bedrock principle of conservatism. If blacks and whites in the same economic position have equivalent opportunities, then by what conservative principle do we ask our government to give an advantage to the black person so that we can see wealth equally distributed among the races? That's social engineering, and I would think that a conservative would find it abhorrent.

Second, allow me to take my cue from Chris Rock, who once said that "There's no white person in this audience who would trade places with me--and I'm rich!"

That's just crazy. I'd trade racial and socioeconomic positions with Rock in a heartbeat. (He might have some personal problems I'd rather not acquire, but that's beside the point.)

Third, I agree that culture has a big effect on minority communities. A poor white child is more likely to live with both parents than is a poor black child. But in what way is it white America's "fault" that lower-class black America has a self-destructive culture? I support programs to try to reverse the "culture of poverty" and strengthen lower-class black families (private charities are likely to be more effective at this goal than gov't agencies, BTW), but I do not see how the problems of a demographic group's culture justify AA.

I wrote:
"If, as some commenters have argued, whites are only "marginally" harmed by racial preferences, that is only because they are the demographic majority, so the harm is diluted."

philosopher wrote:
"Who has made this argument here? I just gave the thread a quick scan, and I must've missed it."

Me: Both Phil and Paul made those types of arguments, when they wrote the following:

Phil:
"The actual degree of harm being done by the particular discriminator action, as compared to the benefit gained, is ignored."

Paul:
"Only a few Whites will be affected, and these will be marginal anyway."

Me again: I support replacing all race-based AA with economic class-based AA. The assistance will still go disproportionately to non-Asian minorities, but without problems such as a middle-class black child having an advantage in college admissions over a lower-class white child.

While I think economic-based AA programs might have some level of effectiveness, they again do not address the core problems of racism and sexism that still exist in this country. If I felt more confident that, in the real world, employers and the public sector would encourage healthy competition on the basis of merit among candidates who display economic need, then I'd feel like this is a feasible issue.

Unfortunately, we are dealing with marginalized groups of Americans who are naturally suspicious of a dominant white male minority calling the shots on what is fair and just for everyone. While it might be true that white males today are not responsible for the policies of our founding fathers and subsequent white male governments, they do, to some extent, carry on that tradition. Unlike Iraq, for example, where women are guaranteed 25% of the seats in the legislature, American women only make up about 12-13% of our Congress. Other racial minorities constitute an even smaller percentage. If we aren't even capable of addressing the process in which we apparently can only elect mostly white male government officeholders, how can we convince ourselves that we can do it on every other level in our culture?

What we often forget is that our nation, our constitution, our system of government and suffrage, our judicial system and philosophy were all created by white males, a minority which dominated all other demographic populations in this nation. One reason I see people on the Left get disturbed about the concept of "strict constructionism" or literal interpretations of the Constitution, for example, is there is a fear this will lead to nothing but privilege for the economic/cultural/racial class of our Founders.

This was an independent nation for 140 years before we were capable of legalizing a woman as a citizen who can vote. So, in terms of conservative philosophy, only white males were worthy to be considered full members of society and recognized as individuals. For other minorities, blanket restrictions or barriers have historically been part of the culture.

Naturally, what often happens to a marginalized group is that they develop a subculture among those who have been assigned a different social status because of some characteristic. That culture develops often independently of the more dominant group and the interaction and fear among groups often separates people into subcultural neighborhoods. Have we, as a nation, grown up enough to recognize each American and judge them as individuals? I'm afraid not.

I think, if we toss any moralizing aside at this juncture, we can look at what gay Americans are enduring at this point. Ostracization caused them to construct their own neighborhoods, their own businesses, their own networks, much like many other groups. But yet, just as in Maine's election, the larger population actually VOTED on whether or not they could be protected in employment, housing and credit. It's rather hard to convince this group that they are going to be treated as "individuals" by the same people who wouldn't recognize social barriers to having housing.

And that doesn't even touch on constitutional amendments designed to dictate that they are legally "single," which effectively means that a distant estranged cousin has more power over property and a gay man's dead body than the person they shared a life with for years. When the greater population votes to inflict practical and material harm on your life, it hardly encourages the idea that you, as an individual, will be treated on the basis of your own merits.

Frankly, I'm not sure how effective any AA program is going to be as long as we refuse to address a foundational issue of our economic and social system - and that is institutional ignorance. One of the biggest problems we face in a free enterprise system is that we much too often select people for responsible, well-paying careers who have marginal qualifications. It happens to be a human characteristic to select people who you feel most comfortable with for a work environment, however, that itself can be a barrier to people from lower economic classes and an additional barrier for people from different social/cultural groups as well. As it is, we often demand that those outside the dominant white male minority conform to our image of proper behavior/business demeanor. That often requires others to drastically alter their own cultural upbringing.

I kinda hate to do this, but I'm going to use gay men as an example again, particularly because their situation in the real world was rather unique. Being members of a demographic minority, many white gay men could disguise themselves as straight in order to get ahead in the business world. They wore the right clothing, found the right woman/friend escorts, and often outplayed the straight white men at their own game in the corporate world. For many years (and yes, that still goes on today) - they were expert at disguising themselves to fit into the corporate culture, climbing the ladder and presenting the proper image of heterosexual family life. And yes, some had arranged marriages in order to look the right part at company parties. The result? They climbed right up the ladder and right through the glass ceilings that stopped other minority groups until they either felt safe or had enough power to come out of the closet. But what that action accomplished was that it shattered the whole mystique of the straight-white-male supremacy in generating income and productivity, as long as they could disguise themselves as the image.

This just isn't something that our nation is going to correct in five years or by enacting simple laws. Laws often offer nothing but recourse - social change unfortunately takes a much longer period of time. But if we are to set goals to make every individual appreciated for their own ability and merit, then we have to recognize and accept our past and our present - and make the attempt to stop ostracizing people in our society for no other reason than perceptions of characteristics. That's a helluva lot harder than it seems.

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