This is one of the underlying problems with affirmative action in recruiting and employment. The question that’s difficult to answer is if the end justifies the means. It probably does, but it’s not always clear.
Yes, one problem with affirmative action is that accepts some collateral damage in the form of individually unjust outcomes, even if it makes the world as a whole more just.
This is a really good point, and I appreciate you bringing it up. What I am saying directly conflicts with affirmative action itself, so in effect I am arguing against it. I don't really have a good answer to that. Thanks for pointing it out, I guess I'll ponder that for awhile.
Intentions sound good, sure: we want to address inequality.
But is the solution “we will only consider people of specific racial backgrounds. We will reject you on the sole basis of your race”? Affirmative action has been firmly grounded in policies for decades. At what point do we do away with it, or decide that it needs to be rebalanced for groups that had potential reduced because of the results of affirmative actions good intentions? It’s made getting into college and many positions as an Asian American pure hell, despite being minorities and many coming from poverty.
Sure, I understand in that example what to do. But as a society, where do we draw the line? Why is it okay to apply affirmative action for selecting students but not okay when accepting employees (continuing the example from this thread)? Since we're trying to fix a systemic issue, we need a consistent response across society for it to be most effective.
My point is this is a complicated problem with no perfect solution, and people will correctly point out flaws with it both theoretically and (more relevant for this discussion) how we implement it.
Yeah I think there are plausible arguments that affirmative action is not the right way to solve the problem. Mostly I’m trying to explain the dynamic that causes affirmative action to exist.
Organizations are somewhat damned if they do and damned if they don't with affirmative action. In particular the onus of proving that an e.g. university is not being discriminatory rests on them. But diversity quotas such as at least 10% of all accepted applicants will be green, 15% blue, etc are illegal. It puts organizations in a situation where they cannot have diversity quotas, but my run into issues if their results do not look like diversity quotas. This same issue is faced by larger corporations as well.
Consequently, you end up with affirmative action that is based on equality of result instead of equality of opportunity. There are a large number of extremely well qualified Asian applicants so in order to constrain the amount accepted (keeping in mind that acceptance is a zero sum game) they are substantially penalized. I think there's a more fundamental problem with this beyond just fairness.
The whole point of affirmative action was to combat widespread overt racism and other discrimination in hiring/acceptance. Equality of opportunity is extremely important. In times past it's entirely possible the talent in individuals like Neil deGrasse Tyson would not have been allowed to be cultivated because of the color of their skin, and that would be a great tragedy. The problem is that systems that end up de facto equality of result face the exact same problem as we did when overt racism and discrimination was so widespread. You end up viewing certain people as less meritorious than they are, because of the color of their skin. This is something that should never be tolerated, no matter how benevolent the reason may be.
That is a fantastic outcome, and the sort of end goal that affirmative action should seek. But it doesn't always end that well.
In India, affirmative action has basically served to deepen the lines between castes/religions etc. More and more sections of society demand that they be included in quotas. The people who do get in using such programs rarely succeed in suppressing the nagging question of whether they earned it (and that questioning stays with you all your life). Meanwhile, people forge identity documents to make it through such programmes, and the abuse of the system means that no one trusts that it is doing any good overall. In fact, by now, it has become a tool for politicians to appease fractious sections of society.
Affirmative action bestows a patronizing narrative on the selected groups. And what's worst, the narrative likely taints the reputation of the beneficiaries thereafter. We all know examples of that. Affirmative action for one person almost always results in an undeserved kick in the backside for someone else.
Exactly. Affirmative action causes everyone, including the person, to question whether they got there on merit or based on filling some quota. Multiple biases are created.
I personally question the legitimacy / usefulness of affirmative action, but the best argument in support of it which I have heard is that people bound their career prospects based on the individuals they observe to be occupying those roles in society. For example, if a person is female and all the software developers they see are male, perhaps they believe that software development is inherently a male job and not for them. This could then lead to a negative feedback loop where females are afraid to make the first step into the industry because no one has done it before them, and the industry misses out on people who could turn out to be very qualified workers. Affirmative seeks to break this loop.
Modern "affirmative action" is not about "equality of outcome" - that would be a silly and unsustainable model. Most of the efforts in that direction are about "ensure there are women and PoC at the interview" and "blind the interview", not about hiring people based on gender or race without consideration of their abilities.
To your particular example, see section 1.c and 1.g for research on the usefulness of their mandate. I personally feel that more research is necessary to understand these effects, I can even agree with someone saying that these efforts are a silly and unpractical bandaid. But instituting a rigid rule against measurable biases is not "equality of outcome", it is very much "equality of opportunity" (nobody would hire an incompetent woman as a board member if that is what worries you)
Yes, but this raises the issue of affirmative action causing bias about innate abilities, and that's absolutely true.
If you knew there were a lower bar for people who had red hair, for example, because there's a pay gap and their population ratio isn't represented equally, every time you'd have someone on your team with red hair, you'd wonder if they were there because of the exception made for them or if they got there on pure merit. Thus, affirmative action causes people to question that merit (bias).
Worse, the redhead who got in never knows if they got accepted based on merit or based on some quota, which contributes heavily Impostor syndrome, negative self image and confirmation bias based on that negative self image.
You combine these two things over time and there is absolutely an impact.
Damore's ultimate points were: let's discuss this and, by the way, please don't ignore me just because my opinion is unpopular.
While this could potentially lead to “fairer” outcomes, it would likely be difficult and/or expensive to implement. Also, Affirmative Action as an official policy would likely be illegal; what is being described here is the more modern and surreptitious form in “positive discrimination”
Except affirmative action is not the solution either because now you’ve put less meritorious people where they shouldn’t be (I apologize for the phrasing, but I think it’s important not to sugar coat this) as representatives of their disenfranchised group. As far as I can tell, in every environment I’ve been in, this often only serves to reaffirm and even intensify the bias. And the beneficiaries of affirmative action are furthermore made to feel like human asterisks, even if they’re talented and entirely deserving of an opportunity.
I have struggled with this dichotomy for many years. I still feel that "affirmative action" is inherently discriminatory. But I too can offer no alternative to foster change. Considering the circumstances http://www.samefacts.com/2012/04/msm-mainstream-media/womens... I reluctantly accept that the end justifies the means.
At the expense of other individuals. I personally don't believe affirmative action continues to serve its original purpose, although I've always been against it and gender discrimination as well.
I only have one life. Being told it's ok that I was denied an opportunity because I'm white and I'll be ok is easier to abstract into a broad formula, but harder to take when, on merit alone, I'd be given that opportunity and my life as a human being would be better for it.
Affirmative action was arguably a way to accelerate towards true unbiased judgement, but any purpose it served has run its course and now it's rather harmful, IMHO.
reply