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June 07, 2006

Does the Market Want Affirmative Action?

In an earlier post on affirmative action and admissions to public schools, I suggested that "the market" values at least some kinds of affirmative action.  One reader responded as follows:

I disagree that the market "seems to want" affirmative action. The market wants universities that deliver a lot of value per dollar of tuition. The easiest way for a university to do this is for the university to accept public financing, grants, etc. With those grants and funds come lots of federal legislation, including a lot of programs that - if they do not actively mandate affirmative action - certainly put in place lots of structural biases that soon lead to affirmative action.

The reader's comment is reasonable, but I suspect colleges and universities would practice affirmative action even without government "pressure."  The reason is that many faculty and administrators believe that diversity is a worthy goal, and I agree.  Current policies might put more weight on diversity than is ideal, but that is a difficult judgement to make.

The key point, moreover, is that government-imposed and privately-chosen affirmative action are different things.  The former restricts choices by private actors; the latter reflects choices by private actors.   This does not mean government-imposed is all bad and privately-chosen is all good. But the latter is likely to reflect a better balancing of costs and benefits.

June 07, 2006 |

Comments

TJIC

Excellent points.

As it turns out, I think that BOTH factors are present, but wanted to present a potentially controversial one.

Posted by: TJIC | June 07, 2006 at 04:51 PM

Mike Huben

"But the latter is likely to reflect a better balancing of costs and benefits."

Why? Because that's the dogma of your ideology? Please favor us non-gnostics with some basis in real information for this view.

Private rights, such as admissions, privatize power over other people. Giving "choices" to some powerful organizations denies choices for other people. Case in point: the old banking practice of redlining. Banks decided that some parts of towns were for whites, others for minorities.

There's a basic philosophical principle that this sort of libertarian argument ignores. You cannot create or destroy liberty: you can only say who can exercise some particular liberty. Am I free to swing my fist into your nose? Or are you free from having your nose hit? Whichever is decided, somebody has a liberty and somebody doesn't. We may have a preference for one liberty over another, but that doesn't change the fact that we are dictating a distribution of liberty.

When libertarians make a good case for the need to racially discriminate in admissions, then I'll perhaps consider whether that's the way liberty ought to be distributed. In the mean time, I think the liberty should be distributed to the least powerful.

Posted by: Mike Huben | June 07, 2006 at 09:21 PM

Chris

Mike,

And in your view the "least powerful" is the government by legislative fiat? That makes so little sense it baffles the mind. Vouchers give the power to the least powerful by letting parents choose any school as opposed to the government telling them which school they choose to go to.

There is little evidence that in a world of school choice and privately managed schools that there would suddenly be white schools and black schools. Even if such a thing did occur (I find it more plausible that there would be mixed schools and black schools) you provide no evidence or proof or even conjecture on why this would be a bad thing.

I don't understand your last point. You want AA, but you don't want racial discrimination in admissions? The two are mutually exclusive.

Posted by: Chris | June 08, 2006 at 10:59 AM

Mike Huben

"There is little evidence that in a world of school choice and privately managed schools that there would suddenly be white schools and black schools."

Chris, that's about the stupidest, most ignorant, ahistorical thing I've heard you say yet. The evidence from nations that DO have vouchers is that they DO result in segregation along class, religious, ethnic, and racial lines.

Evidence from our own history is compelling; such as black and white private colleges, redlining, and a host of other private discriminatory practices.

Posted by: Mike Huben | June 09, 2006 at 05:42 PM

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