Affirmative Action for the Future

3. How Best to Define Affirmative Action

3 How Best to Define Affirmative Action The degree to which people in general are in favor of affirmative action largely depends on how that policy is described. For example, a Los Angeles Times poll showed that 58 percent of African Americans “opposed special preferences based on race and not merit,” and a Washington Post/ABC poll showed that roughly two out of three women “oppose preferential treatment for women.” On the other hand, according to pollster Lou Harris, every poll that has asked the simple question as to whether people “favor or oppose affirmative action—without strict quotas” has obtained a similar result: people favor affirmative action. Support runs 55 percent in favor to 40 percent against in more recent polls down from the average majority of 60 percent in favor to 38 percent against in polls taken over the past twenty- five years. Moreover, when people in California were asked whether they would still favor Proposition 209 if it outlawed all affirmative action programs for women and minorities, its support dropped to 30 percent and the number of those opposed rose to 56 percent. In addition, when asked about affirmative action programs at their workplaces, 80 percent of EuroAmerican workers strongly support the programs they know about and that directly affect them. According to another study, affirmative action programs were less palatable when they were applied to African Americans 32 Affirmative Action for the Future and most acceptable for the elderly and people with disabilities. Programs for women and the poor fell somewhere in between.1 This lack of clarity as to how to characterize affirmative action has affected the debate over whether affirmative action can be justified. Frequently , the affirmative action that critics attack is not the affirmative action that most people defend. For example, Carl Cohen maintains that defenders of affirmative action preferences want to award them to all the members of particular ethnic groups simply in virtue of their membership in those groups. But this view would have absurd consequences. It would mean, for example, that a minority student graduating from an inner-city high school with a fifth-grade reading ability would be an appropriate candidate for affirmative action at Harvard University. Thus, Cohen is able to win his battle against affirmative action only because he is using an absurd conception of affirmative action that no one endorses.2 If we are going to bring this debate any closer to a resolution, we need some agreement on what we should call affirmative action. I think it is more appropriate for critics of affirmative action to take their characterization from those who defend it rather than devise their own. Then critics of af- firmative action can avoid missing their target.3 It would also be helpful if defenders of affirmative action were to formulate their definitions so that they are acceptable to all sides. At least that is what I try to do in this book.4 I propose to define affirmative action as a policy of favoring qualified women, minority, or economically disadvantaged candidates over quali- fied men, nonminority, or economically advantaged candidates respectively with the immediate goals of outreach, remedying discrimination, or achieving diversity, and the ultimate goals of attaining a colorblind (racially just), a gender-free (sexually just), and equal opportunity (economically just) society (see diagram).5 Affirmative Action Immediate goals: • Outreach • Remedying discrimination (Putting an end to discrimination and compensating for past discrimination)· • Diversity (To achieve certain educational or workplace benefits and to achieve equal opportunity) Ultimate goals: • A colorblind (racially just), gender-free (sexually just), and equal opportunity (economically just) society How Best to Define Affirmative Action 33 Minorities for whom it is appropriate to pursue affirmative action are those who have been significantly harmed by past or present discrimination and/or those who can provide the benefits of diversity.6 A colorblind and gender-free society is a society in which race and sex have no more signi ficance than eye color has in most societies. It is a society in which the traits that are truly desirable and distributable are equally open to women and men.7 An equal opportunity society is one where individuals with the same native abilities and skills have similar social and economic chances for...