Walking the Razor, Multi-Purpose Research Note

NAACP

There is no easy way to walk on the delicate line of race without somehow insulting someone. We don’t like to hear that there’s a difference between a white person and a black one. A hispanic or an asian.

Yet affirmative action still persists in portions of the nation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. For years, America’s corporations, universities and public service departments have jumped hoops for our administrations in order to satisfy quotas for employing and educating minorities in the U.S. Some critics (and members of my team) have expounded that affirmative action has come and gone. But news of affirmative action has begun to resurface.

Make no mistake, there are individuals from minorities who easily possess the merit for what they achieve. But the racial gap in test scores remains, and with that despairing differences in achievements between races. With those differences comes pressure. Pressure on the universities to accept more students regardless of their qualifications, even if their scores were not deserving. Pressure on cities to promote police officers and fire fighters regardless of merit to higher positions. Pressure on companies to hire, even at risk to themselves.

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell published an article this morning compounding that many who have defaulted on their mortgages and put our economic system at risk in the first place were minorities- that based on their credit worthiness, they should not have been given loans. And yet political pressure, perhaps a lingering shadow of affirmative action, gave rise to at least a portion of our economic crash. Examining the government’s involvement in the debacle is a worthwhile endeavor.

As I read Backfire by Bob Zelnick, my awareness of the policies of affirmative action saddened me. Stephen Levine stated that if morals were how the world should be, economics was how it actually was, and the circumstances Zelnick expounded upon made some of that painfully clear. The book was published back in 1996, but as the news sources regarding the fire fighter promotional controversy proved, it is far from dead.

Companies wanting the best employees for their services are often challenged by employment tests. These tests, as Zelnick put it, are “better indicators of people who are not qualified for a position than those who are.” Employers would much rather avoid a bad candidate than hire a good one.

But many minorities do poorly in these tests. Due to affirmative action quotas, those who succeed are highly, highly desirable to companies and educational institutes. Some of these institutes even add powerful incentives, such as minority scholarships. But many less qualified candidates were permitted in as well, and their inability to deliver their workloads harmed the performance of these companies. The combination of legal pressure from the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), coupled with civil rights groups such as NAACP (National Association for Advancement of Colored People) have pushed these institutions into situations where, even if qualified, racial discrimination is often reversed against caucasians to fulfill quotas, which can and does result in further lawsuits.

Again, this was back in 1996. As I understand it, much of affirmative action has come and gone. Aspects remain, but the murmuring echoes return. After all, mortgages typically go on for 30 years or so. The seeds of the mortgage crisis were planted years ago, and economists (and moreso the politicians) argue exactly when and where the blame lies.

I am scarcely a third through the book. But the depth and scope may serve as a view altering and thought stirring point against affirmative action. If anyone spots an error or over generalization, please let me know.