Re: BAMN Debate
Nesim Sisa (nesim@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU)
Mon, 30 Mar 1998 18:36:32 -0800
On 30 Mar 1998, George J. Lee wrote:
> Nesim Sisa <nesim@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU> writes:
>
> > The debate over affirmative action could get very sloppy and may not
> > even be very useful. Does the LP stand philosophically against all
> > affirmative action? I assume the speakers dislike government sponsored
> > affirmative action. But what about the affirmative action at Stanford or a
> > private company. I think it is important that we make clear what type of
> > affirmative action is defensible. A possible argument would be that the
> > SAT does not accurately predict college performance for certain
> > individuals.
>
> As with a great deal of other issues, we are not against its practice
> privately; we are against government force. The real libertarian
> position is to allow private individuals to hire whomever they like on
> any basis, even race. Prop 209 still doesn't address government
> anti-discrimination laws, which libertarians feel shold not
> exist. This debate is on affirmative action, however, which means
> racial preferences by government. We want to end forced racial
> preferences. Though I believe private institutions should be able to
> hire based on race, I still don't believe in affirmative action. It's
> by definition racist and therefore unfair. I won't go into all the
> arguments now, but I am against decisions solely on the basis of
> race. Sure, SAT's may not be accurate, but one should not decide
> admissions just by the ethnicity of the applicant.
The whole rational for using the SAT is that it allows universities to
choose the bright students. If the SAT had little predictive value schools
would ignore them. In fact graduate schools' feel that a new set of tests
and undergraduate performance are better predicters of who is capable of
good work. If a college admissions officer/bureaucrat looks at a student's
record and sees that these types of tests underpredict
achievement, would it not be more advantageous to admit this student.
Couldn't the same generalization be made for an ethnic group.
Universities do gain from affirmative action. They can admit wealthy
students and gain financially. They can admit athletic students and gain
national fame. They can admit token ethnic minorities, either because they
bring a unique viewpoint or the school wants diversity for the sake of
diversity. I guess the argument really centers on what is most important
to a school. On a practical note though, affirmative action
admissions are rather miniscule.
I think quite often the rationale for affirmative action is that it
uplifts hopeless groups. If a group is suffering due to racism, what
alternative is there to affirmative action.
>
> > BAMN of course takes the stance that affirmative action is always right.
> > But there is some ground that we would agree on. If the debate reached
> > this common ground, I don't know what might happen. The debate could
> > stagnate into name calling if there is nothing substantiave
> > to argue over. I think you have to be careful when you argue with a group
> > whose arguments and aims are not well defined or well thought out. It
> > might be better if we had a debate with an articulate group of students.
>
> Don't worry, we won't reach a common ground. BAMN will not agree with
> this anti-affirmative action statement:
>
> "The government should not make decisions based on race or ethnicity."
>
> George
>
I am worried that the debate might not be focused enough. I don't really
understand the point of debating millitants, other than it should be an
interesting circus like atmosphere.