Repeal of race
preferenceprograms:EffectsonAsiansandpublicreactions
Ilya Somin
isomin at gmu.edu
Mon Nov 27 22:07:17 PST 2006
I'm not so sure. If I am right that the average white (to say nothing of the average Asian-American) is worse rather than better off as a result of slavery and Jim Crow, then there is no "ill-gotten gain" to be redistributed by affirmative action (even assuming that AA is an effective way to engage in such redistribution, which I think can be questioned on other grounds). Maybe AA can be justifed on some other kinds of grounds, but not on the ground of eliminating a "privilege" which in reality turns out to be a net loss for whites as a group. Obviously, AA that redistributes opportunities away from Asian-Americans or other nonwhite groups would be even more problematic.
Ilya Somin
Assistant Professor of Law
George Mason University School of Law
3301 Fairfax Dr.
Arlington, VA 22201
ph: 703-993-8069
fax: 703-993-8202
e-mail: isomin at gmu.edu
Website: http://mason.gmu.edu/~isomin/
SSRN Page: http://ssrn.com/author=333339
----- Original Message -----
From: Greg Magarian <magarian at law.villanova.edu>
Date: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 0:47 am
Subject: RE: Repeal of race preferenceprograms:EffectsonAsiansandpublicreactions
> Actually, I was pretty sure my reference to differences in status as
> "strong evidence" of "historically rooted white privilege" bolstered
> Yvette's argument (or at least sought to do so). I also must politely
> decline Eugene's imputation of support for "discrimination" --
> that's a
> big part of what supporters and opponents of AA contest, so
> perhaps we
> should resist the temptation to swing the rhetorical cudgel --
> and, less
> confidently, of a "make whole" bottom line (". . . until both have
> borneequal costs"). I'm not sure precisely how we should measure
> success,and that uncertainty is a problem for my support of AA,
> although in this
> case I'm more comfortable advocating an imperfect aspiration
> toward the
> best we can do than assuming we've already done it.
>
> Gregory P. Magarian
> Professor of Law
> Villanova University School of Law
> 299 N. Spring Mill Road
> Villanova, PA 19085
> (610) 519-7652
> >>> "Volokh, Eugene" <VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu> 11/28/06 12:21 AM >>>
> Greg is making a different argument than the one Yvette made.
> Yvette argued that it's proper to discriminate against Rick based
> on his
> race because he "had inherited ... benefits from the
> discrimination of
> the past." I responded that it may be that Rick hasn't inherited any
> such benefits.
>
> Greg is arguing not that Rick has inherited benefits from the
> discrimination of the past, but just that Rick, being white, is better
> off than most blacks are -- perhaps he was hurt by such
> discrimination,too, but not as much as blacks. Under this theory,
> it's not that Rick
> must disgorge unfairly gotten past benefits from the discrimination;
> it's that he should be discriminated against and blacks should be
> preferred until both have borne equal costs. That strikes me as
> quite a
> different theory than "you got unfair benefits, now you have to give
> them up."
>
> Eugene
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
> > [mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Greg
> Magarian> Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 9:13 PM
> > To: Volokh, Eugene; conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
> > Subject: RE: Repeal of race preference programs:
> > EffectsonAsiansandpublicreactions
> >
> > The continuous, statistically significant deficit that
> > African-Americans experience, relative to whites, in
> > virtually all measures of socio-economic well-being -- the
> > most salient, for purposes of this discussion, being
> > representation (discounting the effects of affirmative
> > action) in student populations and the professions --
> > provides strong evidence that historically rooted white
> > privilege continues to have a great influence on how we all
> > live. White privilege alone doesn't necessarily justify
> > affirmative action; one might still oppose the practice based
> > on stigma concerns, the conceptual difficulty of identifying
> > proper beneficiaries, or the distasteful nature of racial
> > distinctions (although, to be candid, those arguments don't
> > persuade me, and the last one always seems to come awkwardly
> > packaged with calls to ignore the effects of the history that
> > makes racial distinctions so distasteful). But categorically
> > denying the significance of white privilege leaves "just
> > deserts" as the only logical explanation for racial
> > disparities in socio-economic well-being, and that's a pretty
> > hard story to swallow.
> >
> > Gregory P. Magarian
> > Professor of Law
> > Villanova University School of Law
> > 299 N. Spring Mill Road
> > Villanova, PA 19085
> > (610) 519-7652
> > >>> "Volokh, Eugene" <VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu> 11/27/06 11:36 PM >>>
> > Yvette Barksdale asks Rick:
> >
> > "Are you saying that you have not inherited any
> > benefits from the discrimination of the past? Question - did
> > your parents and grandparents receive benefits? And, if so,
> > did they transfer any of them
> > to you? If the answer is yes - is it fair that you get to not only
> > keep it all, but leverage it into greater gains...."
> >
> > Well, I can't speak for Rick. Perhaps one or more of
> > his distant ancestors died on the Union side in the Civil
> > War, leaving their infant children rather poor. (That's
> > probably true of millions of Americans alive today.) Did the
> > effects of this dissipate enough over the generations since
> > the Civil War? Did the effects of pre-War slavery (as
> > opposed to more recent Jim Crow) dissipate for blacks? How
> > exactly are we to calculate that?
> >
> > Or perhaps, as I've heard many opponents of race
> > discrimination argue, race discrimination against blacks was
> > economically bad for most whites as well as for most blacks:
> > It yielded less of a pie to be split up, so that even if
> > whites got a larger share of the pie than was fair
> > -- which is to say they were hurt much less by race
> > discrimination against blacks than blacks were -- they got a
> > lesser amount than they would have but for race
> > discrimination against blacks. If Rick's parents or
> > grandparents suffered from the consequences of this effect,
> > then Rick actually derived net *costs* from the
> > discrimination of the past rather than benefits. It's a
> > common (and in my view quite
> > plausible) argument, after all: Ending racism is good for
> > all of us (with a very few exceptions), including
> > economically good; if that's so, then it suggests that past
> > racism was economically bad for all of us.
> >
> > I, on the other hand, did not inherit any benefits from
> > the discrimination against blacks in the U.S. It's
> > conceivable that I got some benefits from 1975 on, if my
> > parents somehow benefited from
> > post-1975 race discrimination in favor of whites. But for
> > reasons much like the ones noted above, I could have suffered
> > costs as well. Plus I suffered unknown costs from
> > discrimination against whites (whether my parents or me) past
> > 1975. Should I too be included as part of the debtor race?
> >
> > My parents also suffered a considerable amount in the
> > Soviet Union because they were Jewish. On the other hand,
> > they also managed to get out from the Soviet Union because
> > they were Jewish, when non-Jews (with few exceptions) weren't
> > allowed to get out at all. If we went back to Russia today,
> > should we be entitled to preferences on account of our
> > Jewishness? Should we be discriminated against to compensate
> > for the unfair benefit that we got (and that we happily took
> > advantage of)?
> >
> > Perhaps it's questions like this that lead many people
> > to conclude that either notions of racial guilt or
> > entitlement, or notions of individual entitlement or duty to
> > disgorge ill-gotten benefits that supposedly stem from one's
> > race, should not legitimately be part of the analysis.
> >
> > Eugene
> > _______________________________________________
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