Affirmative Action Plans: A Policy Analysis

1 AFFIRMATIVE ACTION PLANS: A POLICY ANALYSIS1 By Elizabeth Steiner Maccia 1. Introduction 1. My position in this paper is not one of advocacy but one of analysis. There is no need for a philosopher to reinforce the voices of women. Nor am I here in a position of the compleat analyst. There is no need for a philosopher to reinforce the voices of scientists and other non­philosophic analysts. I am here as one whose intellectual loyalty is to the pursuit of logical and moral illumination. 2. In the pursuit of logical illumination, I shall attempt to explicate policy, policy analysis, and affirmative action plans. In the pursuit of moral illumination, I shall discuss the policy of affirmative action relative to the kind of society in which we want to live and the kind of men and women we wish to see nurtured in such a society. 2. The Nature of Policy* 1. Social organizations emerge wherever there are groups of persons. Some of them are informal and some are formal. Formal social organizations are instituted to achieve certain goals. An example of a non­institution would be the family; of an institution, the university. Whether a social organization is formal or informal, it is characterized by structure, i.e., *In clarifying my ideas about policy and policy analysis, of help were the following: S. Ballinger, "The Nature and Function of Educational Policy" Cl); H.S. Bhola, "The Design of (Educational) Policy: Directing and Harnessing Social Power for Social Outcomes" (2); A.S. Clayton, "The Organization of the School of Education, Indiana University for Policy Development" (3) and "The Relevance of Philosophy of Education to Questions of Educational Policy" (4); and P.G. Smith, "On Policy" (16). 1 Reprinted by permission of Elizabeth S. Maccia; May 1975 issue of VIEWPOINTS, The School of Education, Indiana University 2 a "specific relational system of interaction among individuals and collectiv­ ities" (9), and by culture, i.e., "transmitted and created content and patterns of values, ideas, and other symbolic­meaningful systems" (9). Structure gives rise to positioning of individuals and collectivities in the group and so to status, while culture—the shared beliefs and orientations—provides guides for the conduct of members in the group and so gives rise to role. Status and role, of course, are not independent of one another, for structure and culture interact. For instance, an authoritative role leads to a superordi­ nate position, and a superordinate position to an authoritative role. Hence, the official capacity to exercise control depends upon both structure and culture. The powerful and produced by culture and are producers of culture. 2. Since institutions are to achieve certain goals, they can by defined by the constitutive rules for acts taken to embody such achievement. For instance, just as chess is constituted by the rules which are essential for one? player either capturing or checking another player's king, so a university is constituted by the rules which are essential for the promotion of learning. The constitutive rules of an institution, therefore, prescribe its structure and culture. Such rules create offices and roles, regulate procedures, and assign rights and duties. 3. "Rule," according to Black* (3), has four main senses: instruction, regulation, precept, and principle. A rule as an instruction is a direction, and so expresses a command whose form is S do A where 1 Sf stands for a sub­ ject and 'A' for an action. There is no modality in the sense of the action being required, forbidden, or permitted. A rule as regulation is lawlike, and so expresses a prescription whose form is S to do A. The 'to do' adds the modal element. A rule as precept is a rule of prudence or of morality, and so expresses a normative whose form is S ought to do A. *It should be noted that my exposition of the four senses of "Rule" deviates from that of Black. 3 Even though both the regulation and the precept involve a prescription, in the case of the precept neither is there a sense of enforcing, rescinding, or reinstating the rule nor does the rule have a history. Finally, a rule as principle is a...