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Wednesday, June 25, 2003
posted by gbarto at 4:28 PM:
These are words one doesn't expect to see at the TurkeyBlog, so we'll see if the server can process them:Michael Kinsley's latest column really hits the mark. That column, on the Supreme Court's bizarre split-the-difference affirmative action decision, makes the point that too few seem to be making: The use of race in deciding college admissions - no matter the approach - will probably give some minorities admission at the expense of some white students. It doesn't matter whether you say, "Tony's got good marks, but Lester didn't do too badly and he's black so he's in," or "Tony's great, but there's something about Lester... he's just so darn ethnic." Either way, Lester gets a slot, Tony doesn't. And society is left with the question of whether this arrangement fulfills some higher purpose. Kinsley doesn't answer that question. He just leaves us with it, which is not unwise. After all, the mighty Supreme Court left us with it too. What the Supreme Court in effect said was, "We think affirmative action might be wrong but we're not sure so try not to be too obvious about it but keep at it in case it's okay." This puts the ball in the court of public opinion, to mix metaphors poorly.
If affirmative action serves a higher purpose, its proponents need to make the case for that higher purpose and loud and clear. If they're prepared to show Tony that having a black schoolmate will make his fellows so much better that he should take his losses for the good of society and that structural discrimination, lack thereof, etc, means he'll come out alright in the end, fine. If they wish to argue that Lester needs and deserves the break because of the wrong done him by society, fine. But to speak in fuzzy terms of diversity - as did the court - without really explaining how it justifies the harm to the Tonys of the world - is not acceptable, for it suggests that any public purpose, however nebulous, may ultimately serve as justificiation for individuals to lose their recognition as individuals. In their efforts to be tolerant but firm, the Supremes have been neither, instead setting the stage for a world that evermore resembles the one liberals so long deplored in which unexplained and inexplicable backroom decisions selectively included and excluded - and now the more inexplicable and unexplained, the better the issue of potential harm will be fuzzed. A bad day for the Supremes and an excellent demonstration by Kinsley of how much their decision did to skirt the fact it wasn't a decision at all.
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