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Subject: Affirmative Action
From: Andrew Yu <andrew@andrewyu.org>
Message-Id: <CTWUQHND92OE.31YJ2FM2GHPTB@andrewyu>
Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2023 14:14:28 +0000
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(Slightly modified for "publication")
(Actually, no, this is just insanely badly written. I'll rewrite it
sometime.)
(Update: check https://git.runxiyu.org/runxiyu/philo.git/plain/affirmative-action/)
Here is my attempt at the Harvard/UNC affirmative action question,
though I can't guarantee it's comprehensive, objective or developed, and
the language here is deadly plain. Be aware that there's a fair bit of
ethics, political philosophy and (minimal but still) US politics ahead.
Also, since I'm Asian myself (of course, disadvantaged under the AA
policies), perhaps I'm biased.
Firstly, let me declare my unconventional "stance". I believe that
affirmative action based on race is generally useless and may backfire;
however if I were a supreme court justice, I would vote with the
Liberals, to not interfere with the affirmative action policies of the
universities.
I'll start with why I believe that the court shouldn't interfere with
the universities' policies. Harvard and UNC are private universities.
They have their own ideals, and as long as they're not causing active
harm to society (in my opinion, that'd be violating other people's
negative liberty in the traditional interpretation by Isaiah Berlin—I am
aware that there are paradoxes but it's the closest to a consistent
theory of political philosophy that I can reach for now). Simply
speaking, the students they admit is irrelevant to the government/state.
If we consider public universities on the other hand, then sure. The
government funds them, is supposed to set their goals and policies, and
is responsible for their admissions and could rightfully implement
policies that they see fit, but for private educational institutions, my
"small government" mindset comes in.
However, there are interesting arguments surrounding how "elite"
universities such as Harvard, and to some extent UNC, have substantial
social impact on society, as they are more or less a standard in
defining tertiary education in the US and globally. Other educational
institutions may follow their policies in attempts to bring themselves
to the prestigious "standard" that elite institutions set, these elite
universities are crucial in educational mobility, there might be
potential public investment, etc. However I still intuitively think that
the government shouldn't intervene, perhaps because of how in the US,
court cases set precedents, and a precedent of such intervention would
"allow" for government expansion and potential for the government to dip
their feet into more private business.
Now I'll briefly argue why I believe that affirmative action based on
race is generally useless and may backfire. There are three main reasons
that I could think of for affirmative action, I'll describe my opinion
on each, one by one.
First, that affirmative action promotes diversity. I (personally) think
that diversity is an insufficient reason to be potentially racially
discriminating (people with the same academic capability may be
rejected/admitted based on racial quotas, which may be considered a form
of discrimination based on factors that they couldn't control).
Second, that affirmative action adjusts for educational inequality. I
haven't fact-checked this, but perhaps it's true that African-Americans,
on average, live in poorer communities and have lesser access to good
secondary education. Therefore their grades cannot fully reflect their
academic potential, and universities admissions should compensate for
that. Now aside from how this feels patronizing, race is no longer a
good measure of "lack of educational resources due to financial
situations/etc", with the existence of quite affluent African-American
families. Affirmative action (if any) for
educational-inequality-adjustment could be better implemented by looking
at education and financial situations themselves, not race.
Third, that affirmative action compensates for past wrongs. Having what
people's ancestors do affect them negatively present-day feels awkward,
although arguably people benefitting from the achievements of their
ancestors means that they also need to take relevant responsibilities.
Anyways, here are my thoughts… a bit incomplete but might be
interesting. Cheers!
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