Repeal of race preference programs: Effects on Asiansandpublicreactions

[Sanford Levinson]

What I find intriguing about this "debate" is the implicit suggestion
that it is almost illegitimate to be motivated by self-interest.  I am
scarcely a Chicagoan in my worldview, but it seems to me that one can go
pretty far in assuming that the motive force for much political action
is self-interest.  That obviously isn't sufficient, and I'm sure that a
lot of people are indeed motivated by the highest of princples,
including people on both sides of the aa debate.  This would presumably
explain the support by a lot of whites for affirmative action, since
it's hard to see any immediate self-interest in it.  But would whites
support affirmative action if relevant African-American groups did not?
It would be close to bizarre if whites "on principle" continued to
support it if minority leaders (and their followers) all agreed with
Clarence Thomas that it is in fact counter-productive instead of helpful
to African-American interests.  Similarly, if there were not a
substantial number of aggrieved whites, primarily working class, who
believed (probably falsely) that their lives would be significantly
better were it not for all of the plums going to benefitted minorities,
the debate would be only of "academic interest" in a rather pejorative
sense.  

No doubt we could have some of the same discussion if we were discussing
subsidies for ethanol.  I'm confident that most of the Iowans who
support them can explain at the drop of the hat why it serves the
American national interest to pay such subsidies.  No doubt Ted Stevens
can offer similarly high-minded justifications for the "bridge to
nowhere."  

sandy  

-----Original Message-----
From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Volokh, Eugene
Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 9:52 PM
To: conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: RE: Repeal of race preference programs: Effects on
Asiansandpublicreactions

    It's a pretty fair bet that Jennifer Gratz didn't devote a couple of
years of her life to the MCRI simply because of her self-interest in the
sense of her interest in not being treated worse as a result of race
preference programs.  My guess is that the expected future financial
benefit to her of abolition of those programs is a tiny fraction of the
value of the time and effort she invested in the campaign.  Maybe she
was acting out of a different kind of self-interest, for instance if she
was a paid employee of the campaign (I have no idea whether she was) or
if she expects to leverage this into a political career (I have no idea
whether she does).  But pure self-interest of the "race preferences hurt
me, so abolishing them will help me" isn't enough to explain her
actions.
 
    Now it's quite possible that her being disadvantaged by race
preferences in the past made her feel emotionally committed to fighting
them, but that would reflect precisely the principled opposition that
Rick describes, though a principled opposition that may have been
catalyzed by one's past experience (along the lines that a conservative
is a liberal who's been mugged, or a liberal is a conservative who's
been wrongly arrested).
 
    It's also possible that her concern isn't *self*-interest, but
*racial* interest -- the desire to advance her racial group, or to
correct perceived wrongs because they are to her racial group.  I would
not lightly infer such racial thinking on anyone's part, whether that of
Gratz or of a black supporter of race preferences.  But this isn't
self-interest either in the literal self, or in the sense that Sandy
describes below.

	Eugene


 
Sandy Levinson writes:
 
Rick writes, "There is no more reason to think that white opponents of
affirmative action oppose it out of self interest than to think that
black supporters of affirmative action support it out of self interest.
"   What is wrong about assuming that some (many) black supporters of AA
do it "out of self interest" and, similarly, that some (many) "white
opponents of aa oppose it out of self interest"?  Isn't self-interest a
good starting point for trying to figure out why people feel
passionately about certain public policies that have distributive
conseuencees?  If affirmative action wasn't perceived by many (most)
African-Americans as serving their interests (putting to one side
whether they are correct in that view), then why indeed would they
support it.  Similarly, if aa wasn't perceived by many (most) white
opponents as disserving their interests, why would they care so deeply?
We'll never know if Ms. Gratz would have devoted a couple of years of
her life to getting rid of it had she not been rejected by Michigan and
felt that she had been dealt a material blow.
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