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16 Are Quotas Sometimes Justified? Jallles Rachels Of the many kinds of policies that have been devised to combat discrimination, quotas are the most despised. Almost no one has a good word to say about them. Even those who defend other varieties of preferential treatment are eager, more often than not, to make it known that they do not approve of quotas. In an area in which there is little agreement about anything else, there is a remarkable consensus about this. Why are quotas thought to be so objectionable? The key idea seems to be that justice is blind, or at least that it should be blind where race and gender are concerned. Jobs sholLld go to the best qualified applicants, regardless of race or sex; anything else is unacceptably discriminatory. A race- or gender-based qtlota contradicts this fundamental principle. A hiring quota seems to involve-necessarily-the idea that a less qualified black or woman may be hired ahead of a better qualified white male. But if it is wrong to discriminate against blacks and women, how can it be right to discriminate against white men? This point seems to many people to be so obviously correct that quotas are ruled out peremptorily. It is no wonder that the very word has acquired a bad smell. With so many other issues still unresolved, it may seem perverse to question the one thing about which there is agreement. Nevertheless, I believe that the prevailing consensus concerning quotas is misguided. There is nothing wrong with a quota used in the right circumstances and for the right reason. It needs to be emphasized, however, that there are significant differences in the ways that quotas may be used. They may be imposed in various sorts of circumstances and for various purposes. In what follows I describe a set of circumstances in 218 James Rachels which I believe the imposition of a quota is justified. I do not conclude from this that the imposition of quotas is in general a good thing or that they should be widely used. If only because they cause such resentment , they should be used sparingly. But I do conclude that the near-universal condemnation of quotas is misguided. It is wrong to think they should never be used. Suppose you are the dean of a college-let us say that it is a good college, but not one of the most prestigious in the country-and you are concerned that only the best qualified scholars are hired for your faculty. Your college uses the standard procedure for selecting new faculty: The relevant department solicits applications, reviews them, and then recommends the best qualified to you. You then authorize the formal offer of employment. Your role is mainly that of an overseer ; so long as everything seems to be in order, you go along with the departments' recommendations. In your philosophy department, there are vacancies almost every year. You notice, however, that women are almost never hired to fill them. (One woman was hired years ago, so there is a token female. But that's as far as it has gone.) So you investigate. You discover that there are, indeed, lots of female philosophers looking for jobs each year. And you have no reason to think that these women are, on average , any less capable than their male counterparts. On the contrary, all available evidence suggests that they are equally as good. So you talk to the (male) chairperson of the philosophy department and you urge him to be careful to give full and fair consideration to the female applicants . Being a good liberal fellow, he finds this agreeable enoughalthough he may be a little offended by the suggestion that he is not already giving women due consideration. But your admonition has little apparent effect. Each time there is a vacancy in the philosophy faculty, and candidates are being considered, he continues to report, with evident sincerity, that in the particular group under review a male has turned out to be the best qualified. And so, he says each year, if we want to hire the best qualified applicant we have to hire the man, at least this time. This is repeated annually, with minor variations. One of the variations is that the best female philosopher in the pool may be listed as the department's top choice. But when, predictably enough, she turns out to be unavailable (having been snapped up by a more prestigious university), no...

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