Even if contemporary preferential treatment programs whichcontain quotas are wrong, they are not wrong for the reasons that made quotasagainst blacks and women pernicious. The problem with thisargument is that despite appearances, there is no inconsistency involved inholding both views. Simpleconsiderations of intellectual consistency-of what it means to give racism orsexism as a reason for condemning these social policies and practices-requirethat what was a good reason then is still a good reason now. If it was wrong to take race or sex intoaccount when blacks and women were the objects of racial and sexual policiesand practices of exclusion, then it is wrong to take race or sex into accountwhen the objects of the policies have their race or sex reversed. For, as is now readily acknowledged, at times past employers,universities, and many other social institutions did have racial or sexualquotas (when they did not practice overt racial or sexual exclusion), and manyof those who were most concerned to bring about the eradication of thoseracial quotas are now untroubled by the new programs which reinstitute them.And this, it claimed, is inconsistent. Opponents of preferential treatment programs sometimes assert thatproponents of these programs are guilty of intellectual inconsistency, if notracism or sexism. In this paper I present a limited defense of such programs byshowing that two of the chief arguments offered for the unfairness orinjustice of these programs do not work in the way or to the degree supposed bycritics of these programs. Manycriticisms of programs of preferential treatment claim that such programs, evenif effective, are unjustifiable because they are in some important sense unfairor unjust. I mean by “programs of preferentialtreatment” to refer to programs such as those at issue in the Bakke case-programs which set aside a certainnumber of places (for example, in a law school) as to which members of minoritygroups (for example, persons who are nonwhite or female) who possess certainminimum qualifications (in terms of grades and test scores) may be preferredfor admission to those places over some members of the majority group whopossess higher qualifications (in terms of grades and test scores). MANY JUSTIFICATIONS OFPROGRAMS of preferential treatment depend upon the claimthat in one respect or another such programs have good consequences orthat they are effective means by which to bring about one desirable end, e.g.,an integrated, equalitarian society. Originally appeared as Part II of “Racism, Sexism, andPreferential Treatment, ” 24 U.C.L.A. Richard Wasserstrom, “A Defense ofPrograms of Preferential Treatment”
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |