Why affirmative action should fail

Its because of stupid, illogical and moronic arguments like this.

MR. GARRE: If you look at the admissions data that we cite on page 34 of our brief, it shows the breakdown of applicants under the holistic plan and the percentage plan. And I don’t think it’s been seriously disputed in this case to this point that, although the percentage plan certainly helps with minority admissions, by and large, the — the minorities who are admitted tend to come from segregated, racially-identifiable schools.
JUSTICE ALITO: Well, I thought that the whole purpose of affirmative action was to help students who come from underprivileged backgrounds, but you make a very different argument that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. The top 10 percent plan admits lots of African Americans — lots of Hispanics and a fair number of African Americans. But you say, well, it’s — it’s faulty, because it doesn’t admit enough African Americans and Hispanics who come from privileged backgrounds. And you specifically have the example of the child of successful professionals in Dallas.
Now, that’s your argument? If you have -you have an applicant whose parents are — let’s say they’re — one of them is a partner in your law firm in Texas, another one is a part — is another corporate lawyer. They have income that puts them in the top 1 percent of earners in the country, and they have -parents both have graduate degrees. They deserve a leg-up against, let’s say, an Asian or a white applicant whose parents are absolutely average in terms of education and income?
MR. GARRE: No, Your Honor. And let me -let me answer the question.First of all, the example comes almost word for word from the Harvard plan that this Court approved in Grutter and that Justice Powell held out in Bakke.
JUSTICE ALITO: Well, how can the answer to that question be no, because being an African American or being a Hispanic is a plus factor.
MR. GARRE: Because, Your Honor, our point is, is that we want minorities from different backgrounds. We go out of our way to recruit minorities from disadvantaged backgrounds.
JUSTICE KENNEDY: So what you’re saying is that what counts is race above all.
MR. GARRE: No, Your Honor, what counts is different experiences
JUSTICE KENNEDY: Well, that’s the necessary — that’s the necessary response to Justice Alito’s question.
MR. GARRE: Well, Your Honor, what we want is different experiences that are going to — that are going to come on campus -JUSTICE
KENNEDY: You want underprivileged of a certain race and privileged of a certain race. So that’s race.

Here is the background to this story.

In the fall of 2008, the University of Texas enrolled 10,335 minority students, not including Asian-Americans. As far as Abigail Fisher was concerned, that was one too many.

Fisher had made good grades in high school - a 3.59 average on a 4.0 scale - posted a score of 1180 on the SAT test and finished as number 82 in a graduating class of 674 at Stephen F. Austin High School in Sugar Land. She figured that was good enough. Then came those dreadful words: "We regret to inform you ..."

Fisher was heartbroken. Her dad went to Texas, and her sister. She bled burnt orange. "I had dreamt of going to UT since the second grade," she said.

This week Fisher may get a little payback. On Wednesday the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the lawsuit she brought against the school that challenges an admissions policy that openly allows for the use of racial preferences. If she's successful - and legal pundits are saying there is a good chance - colleges and universities could henceforth be banned from even considering the racial or ethnic backgrounds of applicants.

"I was taught from the time I was a little girl that any kind of discrimination was wrong," Fisher said in a videotaped interview posted on YouTube by her lawyers, who have asked her to do no press interviews. "For an institution of higher learning to act this way makes no sense to me. What kind of example does this set for others?"

So why am I excited? here’s an example from India.

In Tamil Nadu, for instance, 69 percent of university admissions are now set aside for what the state has determined to be “backward castes.” Many of those favored with these set-asides have controlled Tamil Nadu’s government and much of its resources for generations, but they claim special status by pointing to a caste survey done in 1931....
Five prominent university officials in Tamil Nadu said in interviews that those given set-asides at their institutions were generally the children of doctors, lawyers and high-level bureaucrats. The result is that rich students routinely get preference over more accomplished poor ones who do not happen to belong to the favored castes. None of the officials would allow their names to be used for fear of angering the government ministers who benefit politically and personally from the program.

Affirmative Action and its unforeseen circumstances

This was quite an interesting article. I quote

Students who receive large preferences and arrive on campus hoping to major in STEM fields (e.g., Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) tend to migrate out of those fields at very high rates, or, if they remain in those fields, often either fail to graduate or graduate with very low GPAs. There is thus a strong tension between receiving a large admissions preference to a more elite school, and one’s ability to pursue a STEM career.

See how the people reacted when a story about Duke university cracked. The black student alliance went ballistic. Idiots. Check out the comments, fascinating debate…

Incidentally, on a separate note;

But according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the fatal drowning rate of African-American children aged five-14 is three times that of white children.

A recent study sponsored by USA Swimming uncovered equally stark statistics.

Just under 70% of African-American children surveyed said they had no or low ability to swim. Low ability merely meant they were able to splash around in the shallow end. A further 12% said they could swim but had "taught themselves".

The study found 58% of Hispanic children had no or low swimming ability. For white children, the figure was only 42%.

"It is an epidemic that is almost going unnoticed," says Sue Anderson, director of programmes and services at USA Swimming.

Read the comments,, rather sad…

India is broken by narrow walls

I got this emailed petition. It says:

The Communal Award was announced by the British Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald on 4 August 1932 to grant separate electorates to minority communities in India, including Muslims, Sikhs, and Dalit (then known as the Depressed Classes or Untouchables) in India.

In August 1932, the then Prime Minister of Britain, Ramsay Macdonald gave his 'award' known as the Communal Award. According to it, separate representation was to be provided for the Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians, Europeans, etc. The depressed classes were assigned a number of seats to be filled by election from special constituencies in which voters belonging to the depressed classes only could vote.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Communal_Award

This came on a day when I read that the US Supreme Court is going to review the issue of race in university admissions. I agree totally. Respecting race in this manner is stupid. If you do have to discriminate, then discriminate in favour of poor people. Irrespective. That’s the way you see that citizens are non racial and there is an intellectually rigorous argument for making choices.

Needless to say, this idea is totally stupid and idiotic. We shouldn't divide up our communities like this. Why is the assumption that another person of the same religion will be better able to look after you than another person of the same gender? or same height? Or same earnings? This is an extraordinarily stupid initiative and people should grow up, seriously.

bah!

Affirmative Action shows reduced performance and no critical mass effect

I have kept on banging on about the stupidity of Affirmative Action as is known in the USA and reservations in India. Thankfully, this idiotic and intellectually incoherent argument doesnt get much thrift in the UK despite the efforts of so many politicians to push for social engineering plans like this. But here’s another example of the damage this stupid policy does. I quote:

Abstract

In the Grutter case, Justice O’Connor suggested that universities could justifiably try to enroll a “critical mass” of minority students. Enroll fewer than that “critical mass,” reason some observers, and minority students will feel too marginalized to perform at their highest levels. In this article, we test whether minority students perform better with other students from their ethnic group in a class or school. To do so, we assemble data on the ethnicity and performance of each student in all classes at two law schools – for three years at one, and for 16 years at the other. Although these schools enrolled a smaller fraction of African-Americans than most law schools, they are located in states with a much smaller fraction of African-Americans than in the United States as a whole. There is also a large amount of variation in the percent African-American across classes. At these schools, we find no consistent evidence that having additional students from one's ethnic group raises a student's performance. Instead, we find some evidence that having additional ethnic peers lowers performance – albeit by a very small amount.

Research highlights

► Adding more minority students to a class or school does not raise minority grades. ► For raw data, adding African-Americans to a class may lower their average grade. ► Some regressions suggest adding African-Americans to a class may hurt A-A performance. ► There is no evidence to support Justice O’Connor's claim of a “critical mass” effect.

Here you go, another nail in the coffin then. When will people learn that you have to make sure discrimination ends rather than push positive discrimination which ends up decaying and impacting the overall pie. In this particular case, the professions are seriously hit. Would you want your doctor or Lawyer or Architect or or or to be appointed on the basis of their qualifications or their skin colour? Bah!

Sweden stops affirmative action

Excellent News. This entire idea of affirmative action gets my goat anyway. There should be equality of opportunity, not of the role itself. This screws up all kinds of social conditions and gives rise to others. If there are less than ideal number of females, cockroaches, males, Hindu's, wiccans applying, first find out if this matters. Really really matters. If it does, then help them in improving their chances of application, dont put aside seats and stuff like that. I quote:

The Swedish government has announced that from August 1st it will no longer be permitted to favour prospective university students by virtue of their gender.

In a communication to parliament, the government stated that university admissions regulations will be changed to reflect only academic merits.
The Minister for Higher Education and Research, Tobias Krantz, underlined the importance of the principle that all individuals be treated equally regardless of their gender.
To exclude motivated and higher qualified women in the university admissions process is naive, Krantz said.
The background to the decision lies in cases such as one involving a group of students at Lund University who were awarded compensation in February for having been denied places to study psychology due to their gender.
The university settled out of court with the 24 women, who were each awarded 35,000 kronor ($5,000) in damages.
In a similar case, the Svea Court of Appeal ruled in December that it was illegal for the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala to prioritize men for its veterinary education programme.

And in India, they reserved 33% of the seats for women. And yes, I do not agree that that should have happened. A principle is a principle. The way to fix this is to get women to have their rights, make the family laws more gender friendly, make sexual discrimination more difficult, etc. etc. etc.

The white male effect

I came across this paper, which talks about something very interesting which I had never heard of before. It talks about how white males are generally less risk averse compared to females and non white males (which is the more politically correct way of saying coloured males).



Here’s a graph of how various risks that one could face in life are judged by these four demographic groups. Surprise surprise, one finds that on EVERY risk factor, white males think of the risks on a lower level compared to others. As the paper commented:

they generally possess a higher-than-average level of education and household income, are politically conservative, display hierarchal and individualistic worldviews, are more supportive of technological advances, and tend to place greater trust in authority figures, such as industry and government officials

Now keep in mind that this is research is based on an American population so the particular biases, limitations, etc. etc. apply. But I never thought of this in this manner. Before I go into this a bit more, let me point out that the research paper specifically emphasizes that this research should not be considered a conclusion that the White Males are the root cause of all issues and that the rest of the population is a homogenous lot and are put upon by these white males. No, the research clearly shows that there are statistically significant differences in risk taking in other parts of the population and that the actual risk taking is much more nuanced.

But going back to the white male effect, what grabbed my attention was how important this factor was. Look down history and take just the last century for example,and you will see that white males have generally been at the forefront of most historical turning points. Some photographs will prove my point.

1.  The Treaty of Versailles

2. Yalta
 
3. League of Nations

4. United Nations founding.

5. Breton Woods

6. Kyoto Protocol

7. Celebrating fall of Berlin wall.

Anyway, you get the idea, there is a blaze of white male faces. Yes, yes, I know about Obama and Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel and Golda Meir (there is much doubt about these ladies anyway typified by the quote about Margaret Thatcher that she was the only real man in the British cabinet...), but for the vast majority of the recent historical turning points,  the preparation work, the negotiations, the signing, the implementation, the execution of these public policies have all been done by white males. Now think about this. Recent history has largely been driven by white males whose risk perception is statistically significant in being lower compared to other parts of the population.

What does this mean? This means that much of what we are currently living through (whether food standards, security standards, health and safety standards, etc. etc.) are governed by a scale which is lower than what one would have expected if the grand poo bah’s had more non white male members in the decision making and execution areas.

Let's take the first example, cigarette smoking and the eco-system around it. We are talking about the manufacturers, the regulators, the judges, the lawyers, the scientists, the journalists, the analysts, the reporters, the TV reporters, the protestors, by and large, were white males. And they thought that the risk of cigarette smoking was much lower than what other parts of the population thought. Now doing a bit of back testing of this argument, if we had say a race/gender weighted risk understanding of cigarette smoking in the post Berlin Wall fall period, one can make a reasoned argument that restrictions on smoking would have been rolled out considerably earlier than what actually happened.

In each of the risk factors mentioned in the first graph, because of the nature of white males towards risk, one can make a good argument that a more nuanced way could have considerably reduced the risk for humans. Now that we have figured out that belling the cat would be a great idea to save the mice, who will bell the cat? Affirmative Action? Gender equality laws? Or is the prevention worse than the cure? I am not sure I have the answer, but I am sure that the answer is not going to be easy.

Limit of 30% foreigners in a classroom?

The Italian Government is proposing to have a limit of 30% immigrant students in a school class. The argument seems to be that any more than this % of students in a classroom has an adverse impact on integration. Not this is an interesting argument.

On the anti side, i dislike this purely on the basis that its against individual choice and I hate the government buggering around with school life.

 

Then you have the flip side. Remember the forces busing of black students to white schools to make sure diversity is achieved? Its called as Desegregation policies where black students are sent to white schools to make sure that racial diversity is maintained. We have affirmative action to make sure that minorities are benefited. And so on and so forth. If the objective is to have well balanced school, just like elsewhere in the world, we positively discriminate, surely this 30% limit also makes sense?

Needs more thought…

Kudos to the Malaysian PM to knock the bhumiputra policy

The concept of sons-of-the-soil or Bhumiputra in Malaysia is something that i have written about before. Its a classic case of discrimination to push forward one part of the population compared to others. Obviously, when this is done on a race, religion or ethnicity, it causes major angst on part of the people who are not part of this equation. For example, in the USA, they decided to help out the black population by doing affirmative action, but this meant that the white, brown and Hispanic population complain that they have been unfairly targeted and discriminated against. You cannot win, can you? In this case in Malaysia, they discriminated for the Malays against the economically dominant Chinese, but in return, the ethnic Indians were really put upon. Result? Race riots, corruption and the like. Anyway, seems like there are signs of hope. I quote:

When he assumed power as Malaysian prime minister in April, Najib Razak was dismissed as a defender of the status quo. He was seen as a staunch supporter of the interests of the United Malays National Organisation, which has led the country’s coalition government since independence from Britain in 1957.

He was expected to continue the legacy of his father, who as prime minister in the late 1970s introduced the divisive policy of giving preferential treatment to the ethnic Malay majority in business and government jobs under what was known as the New Economic Policy.

The prime minister on Tuesday took a big step towards dismantling the pro-Malay economic policy by ending a long-standing rule that ethnic Malays must hold a 30 per cent stake in companies in most industries. The equity quota will be reduced to 12.5 per cent and new rules for additional rights issues will dilute it further.

Good step, it will make Malaysia a much fairer and just society. I have to congratulate the courage of the PM to take on the entrenched interests in the interests of all Malaysians. He has started to break the narrow domestic walls, which you can still see in so many different countries.

Why is it that only Whites can be racist?

I talked about how Indians in South Africa can be seen to be racist. But here is something curious and not much has been discussed about this aspect. I quote some worrying findings. (More factoids from here and here)

• Some 29 per cent of people surveyed think public sector workers discriminate against them in favour of other ethnic groups.
• And many believe they have been passed over for promotion or a job because of the colour of their skin.
• Seven per cent of white people questioned thought they had failed to win a promotion because of their race, up from three per cent in 2003.
• And the study reveals that ethnic groups living in the UK feel stronger ties to the country than native whites.
• Researchers found that whites also felt less able that other ethnic groups to influence decisions affecting the country or their local area. And many believe racial prejudice is on the rise, in stark contrast with other races.
• The survey found that 29 per cent of white people expect to be treated worse than other groups by at least eight of the public services including police, prisons, courts, Crown Prosecution Service and local housing organisations.
• One in six white Britons feel only a slight sense of belonging to the nation. Whites also now feel less able than other ethnic groups to influence decisions affecting their local area and the country as a whole.
• Forty one per cent of black African, 36 per cent of Bangladeshi and 35 per cent of Indian people feel they have a say in decisions affecting Britain, compared to 19 per cent of white people.
• The proportion of members of ethnic minority groups who expected to face discrimination from one of the eight bodies fell from 38 per cent in 2001 to 34 per cent. But it remains higher than for white people in many categories, particularly the police.
• Whites identified council housing departments or housing associations as the most likely to discriminate against them.
• Overall, 84 per cent of people felt they belonged strongly to the country, including 45 per cent who said they belonged very strongly. However, nine out of ten Pakistani and Indian people said they felt a strong sense of belonging, compared to 84 per cent of whites.

Each and every statistic is worrying. If the criterion was replaced, for example, white with black or brown, the headlines would be screaming. But in this case they are not. Curiously, this story was buried and not much discussion about it has happened. But I think that is wrong. The white population of this country is saying something to the grand political parties and senior intelligentsia and they are not listening. Read the comments on this site to see what some people are saying.

See the commonality? In the South African case, the Indian intelligentsia in charge of the schools wanted more cohesion and integration, but the parents do not want to integrate. However, nobody is screaming about racism to them. But here whites are complaining about reverse discrimination and again nobody is talking about it.

People are not talking about this and they are not considering why this is the case. Why are immigrants being given privileges that local citizens are not receiving ? And even if that is not the actual case, people do think so and perceive it as such. So there is a communications problem. Mind you, knowing the spectacular idiots who are in the government, I very much doubt that they will be able to do anything about this. Despite that silly minister Hazel Blears commissioning this survey, I very much doubt anything will come out of it. I mean, it is not even on her own site.

I find this deeply worrying. Perhaps more transparency in hiring, housing allocation and other aspects will help remove this deep seated fear amongst the " whites" of the country. The fear exists, it needs to be addressed quickly.

Technorati Tags: Affirmative Action,Racism,United Kingdom

Indian Schools in South Africa - Racism still persists

Unfortunately schools are always the target for social policy. One of the places, where this was observable in horrible detail, was in apartheid South Africa. One had white only schools, coloured only schools, black only schools and Indian origin schools.

It's this last one which caused me to take a deeper look at a paper which crossed my in box. The paper is by Anthony Lemon, and is titled "Indian identities in the 'rainbow nation': Responses to transformation in South African schools".

But how did these Indian schools fare after apartheid ended?
I am not sure if there are any definite conclusions, but I am just going to comment on certain noteworthy observations that the author made.

• During apartheid, despite being segregated and having lower amounts of comparative funding, Indian schools did equal to the white schools, both in terms of enrolment as well as educational attainment. Now that I found to be quite interesting and the author points to the unholy drive that Indian parents have towards educating their children as the reason behind this performance.
• But post apartheid, when just looking at 5 schools in a tiny corner of South Africa, some very interesting aspects come up. The first is that while the teachers, staff and governing bodies want to open up their schools to more black students, the parents usually are not that interested. Apparently the prevailing view is, once you let lots of blacks into a school, Indians are less keen to go to that school. Seems like the governing body, teachers and staff are more liberal and inclusive compared to the normal parents.
• Second, while almost no white students would go to an Indian school, some Indian students will go to a white school. But this is either statistically insignificant or because the parents live next to a white school and not because of an explicit desire. Also, most Indian schools are equal if not better than white schools.
• On the other hand, black students will commute very long distances to get to Indian schools which are considered to be much better than black schools. In many cases, the travel costs are greater than the school fees, which is very thought-provoking indeed.
• In many schools with an Indian majority before but now having an African majority, the teachers and staff are still predominantly Indian, mainly because African teachers are very difficult to get, recruit and retain. But this is not as simple as it seems, as staff and teachers seem to be associated with their apartheid era racial attributes. So white teachers go to white schools, Indian teachers go to Indian schools, and so on and so forth.
• But curiously, a pattern which seems to emerge is that Black teachers do not like to go the extra mile which Indian staff and teachers are famous for. For example, in a school, the principal is in school every day of the year, including weekends. Apparently this over the top dedication to teaching is not seen in Black teachers and thus they do not seem to last long in Indian schools.
• Curiously, while Indian parents would be very heavily involved in the schools and with their children's education, that pattern does not seem to show up in black parents, because of poverty, long commute distance or other reasons.
• But given that a huge amount of school funding comes from the parents, a paradoxical downside of opening up the Indian schools to Black students means a very big drop of school income. Given the current economic climate, this is hurting the Indian schools badly in terms of infrastructure development.
• The United Kingdom seems to be siphoning out good teachers relating to physical sciences, biology, maths, speech and drama, languages and life orientation. They seem to be heading off for a better life and salaries.

Now this is what I found interesting and I quote the last line "Desegregation of former Indian schools, if sensitively managed, can make a significant contribution to that identity (Indian Identity within a rainbow nation) by gradually increasing understanding and acceptance of Indians by the black African majority".

So if I read this right, Indians are not accepted or understood well by black Africans and the feeling seems to be reciprocated solidly as shown by the school choices (albeit in a small sample). Racism seems to still be alive and kicking in a very saddening level in South Africa. But would it mean a race to the bottom in terms of inclusiveness or a race to the top in terms of merit? My sad prediction is the former, the balance of probability, looking at how public policy has been executed usually in that neck of the woods, usually means that when it comes to merit versus skin colour, the latter wins.

Technorati Tags: Schooling,Education,South Africa,affirmative Action,racism

Yellow is now black

I was falling about laughing when I read this. When you replace one racist scheme for another, do not be surprised when other races play up. I see that all the time and have talked about it left right and centre. Race based economic policies are always destined to collapse under the weight of their own inconsistencies. We have seen riots and deaths in India, USA and across vast swathes of Africa over this issue.

In the USA, blacks are given affirmative action, but then when yellows from China and Japan, and browns from Asia and Latin America over take them and pick up all the pieces, then it is no longer racism but, erm, what is it?

Here are some examples of how racism is perpetuated by the same people who suffered under it.

The Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) laws use the same racial classifications of the apartheid era, giving advantage to those who were designated as black, Indian or coloured during the years of white rule.

So, the blacks are continuing on doing the same racist stuff.. And because of that, this happens:

The Chinese were considered "coloured" during the apartheid years and suffered discrimination, but from 1994 they were considered "white".

Hmm, so a yellow was first coloured, then became white and now they are black. From a basic economics, political, and frankly common sense perspective, this policy sounds stupid. Why not simply open it up to anybody who is poor and needs help? But no, moronic leaders (that Thabo Mbeki is a prime example, I feel hatred towards him, frigging idiot), will keep on going because that's how low brow they are. Makes more sense to be a racist than to be smart and help all South Africans.

More affirmative action/reservation stupidities

And yet again, 36 people have been killed over the most stupid government policy of all, reservations by caste and creed and religion. I was reminded of this in Malaysia where there still are reservations by religion and race. If you do want to help out the disadvantaged portions of society, then do it via the grouping that will not hurt the country, but doing it via religion, caste, race, creed, language, you name it is stupid and leads inexorably to perpetuation of that division and in the worst case scenario, this bloody situation where people are killed.

Politicians do this for their own venal reasons and ordinary citizens, the sheep they are, follow like, well, sheep. See what happened, your nation is tottering, 36 people killed and government property destroyed. Who wins? Nobody, this is your classic lose lose situation.

See here and here for my previous essays. Shorter notes here, here, here, here, here, etc. etc.

Technorati Tags: Affirmative Action,Malaysia,India

Polls deal stunning rebuke to Malaysia coalition

I do not have a good feeling about this, I have a very bad feeling that Malaysia is heading for severe racial tensions and the ruling Islamic party will also turn right in order to save the power berth. Pretty much transparent. And unfortunately, Muslims in Malaysia are not in the huge majority so it will not be pretty at all. Secularism is the only way forward but that will only happen after a huge conflict, I think.

State directed discrimination never works out properly. When you have institutionalised discrimination, it will piss off somebody!

NO Positive Discrimination in the UK Police!!

Why? no bloody way, and the fact that this is coming from a British Police Officer makes the news horrible and so distasteful. I quote:

Black and Asian police officers should benefit from positive discrimination to get promoted into top jobs, a conference has heard.

Keith Jarrett, the president of the National Black Police Association (NBPA), said they should be appointed to senior roles even if they are less qualified than their white counterparts.

The Met and West Midlands and all these big conurbations could do with someone who looks like the communities — and that's not happening."

Mr Jarrett said two forces had promoted black officers above the rank of Chief Inspector even though they had not gained their Senior Command Course qualification.

Do not ruin our public services by allowing the cancer of political correctness breed. Are you telling me that our police forces are now managed by officers who are not fully qualified? This is criminal and absolutely horrible. This is gobsmacking. Why on earth are these people doing this? Do they not realise the damage they are doing to an institution which is a bulwark of Britishness? Of fairness and fair play? of a meritocracy? Esphoks on them! This is out and out racism!

Technorati Tags: Racism , Affirmative Action , United Kingdom

Only merit should be the criteria

This article in the FT made me slightly upset as the author Michael Skapinker seems to say that affirmative action helps. No bloody way it does not. See my previous essay on this topic. I totally disagree with the fact that a government should start defining what a race is and be more specific in terms of devoting my tax pounds on something stupid like this. No. Sir NO!.

Also, curiously, for this author, minorities seem to be just blacks. What about British Chinese and British Indians, Sir? See here in the media. or in Business. Or is this minority business only fit for Black British? If not, then your argument falls rather flat, doesn't it? Just because we keep quiet, out of sight, quietly go about our business, trust in God and work very hard does not mean that you go about ignoring us.

Red Ken is a clown so he has a reason to be silly like this (take 300 quid taxi rides and then talk about congestion charging!), what's your excuse? I just want a taxi ride and nobody said that only white men can drive or remember the routes around Charing Cross.

Blithering idiots.

 

Merit should prevail

By Michael Skapinker

Published: October 22 2007 19:17 | Last updated: October 23 2007 08:37

London’s taxi drivers are famous for their distinctive cabs, their high fares and The Knowledge – the series of examinations they have to pass proving they know every street in the city within six miles of Charing Cross.

Ken Livingstone, London’s mayor, has noticed something else about London’s cabbies: they are almost all white men. Together with the London Development Agency, he has launched a project to change this.

“Around a third of Londoners are from an ethnic minority background and over half of Londoners are women. Yet only approximately 5 per cent of London’s taxi drivers are from black, Asian or minority ethnic communities and 1.6 per cent are women,” the mayor’s website says.

His project aims to help the under-represented groups become taxi drivers. They will still have to pass The Knowledge, but they will get support to do so.

Most of the help is small-scale. Buddy groups to study The Knowledge together. Mentors. Assistance with childcare. The most substantial offer is the loan of scooters and free fuel to get around while memorising all those streets.

Some of London’s taxi drivers have protested. They managed without any of this, they say – and it was not easy. It takes an average of three years to get through The Knowledge. They had to feed their families and pay their mortgages during that time without any help from the mayor.

The uproar should be no surprise. Programmes to redress racial and sexual imbalance are invariably controversial, as are many things done by Mr Livingstone.

But he is actually pretty limited in his ability to change the complexion of London’s cab drivers. British law bans “reverse discrimination”. Employers and public authorities can no more give special preference to an ethnic minority or female applicant than they can to a white man, even if their aim is to redress the overwhelmingly white, male make-up of their workplaces.

What is allowed is “positive action”: mentoring, open days, work placements – the sorts of things that Mr Livingstone is offering. But everyone still has to be judged equally at the point of recruitment.

This is in contrast with the US, with its long history of affirmative action in employment, education and the award of government contracts.

In 2003, the US Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan law school’s right to admit minority students over white applicants with superior grades and entrance examination scores.

The school was not allowed to consider an applicant’s race alone, but could regard it as one of a number of positive attributes. The court said that would-be lawyers benefited from being part of a diverse student body. It added, however, that preferences of this sort should no longer be necessary 25 years later.

In fact, neither the court nor America’s voters have been prepared to wait that long. Last year voters in Michigan voted for an initiative banning race from being taken into account in government hiring and public university admissions. California voted for a similar initiative as long ago as 1996.

This year the Supreme Court, its balance shifted by President George W. Bush’s appointments, narrowly held that schools in Louisville and Seattle could not consider pupils’ race alone when deciding on admissions.

Speaking for the majority, chief justice John Roberts said: “Government action dividing people by race is inherently suspect.” It reinforced the belief that people should be judged by the colour of their skin, he said.

Similar thinking explains much of the British reluctance to embrace US-style affirmative action. If it is wrong to appoint someone to a job because he is white or male, it is surely wrong to appoint someone because she is black or female.

There is also the effect on people from ethnic minorities who have succeeded on their own merits and whose achievements are diminished if people of similar backgrounds are offered special dispensation. Among those protesting at Mr Livingstone’s proposals were black taxi drivers making just this point.

The British approach may be more appealing on principle, but there is no getting away from the fact that America’s minorities have achieved more.

Britain has had a female head of government while the US has not (yet). But the UK has never had a black foreign secretary; the US has had two in a row, one of them female.

The UK has the occasional black corporate success story, such as Damon Buffini, head of the private equity firm Permira. But it has no black business leaders of the stature of Kenneth Chenault, chief executive of American Express, Richard Parsons of Time Warner or Stan O’Neal of Merrill Lynch.

Is it affirmative action that has made the difference in the US? Or just a determination to judge people on their merits? It would be nice to believe it was the latter.

Technorati Tags: Racism , United Kingdom , Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action - the contradictions galore

I read this very long article in the New York Times on how UCLA and Berkeley are going after the issue of Black Affirmative Action. So far so good. You already know my views (and here) on affirmative action so you will know that I am viscerally opposed to any form of discrimination which cannot be just, fair and equitable to all citizens.

Be that as it may, once you read the article, I had few thoughts on this.

1. Did you notice that now Asians are now lumped in with the Whites? Specially in America? And there was absolutely no mention of this fact at all. Now I wonder why would that be?

2. If I had to write this same article on the basis of say an Vietnamese, or say a Chinese, would it have the same impact? Nope.

3. I didn't realise being an Asian was a race. What race is that then?

4. I further wonder if there is a further classification? They are all African Americans, yes? But in my experience, if I go to Africa and call all Africans as Africans, they will either look at me as if I am an idiot or shoot me (or something in the middle). So how do they distinguish between an Egyptian, Somali, Nigerian and South African or Kenyan?

5. Do you further distinguish between their further ancestry? How about a Kenyan Asian African American? Or an Afrikaner South African American? Or perhaps a English Dutch Boer Afrikaner South African American? Or perhaps a Spanish English Dutch Boer Afrikaner South African American?

At end of the day, see what happened after they put in all those efforts, and I quote,

Looking at the numbers, it’s hard not to conclude that race was a factor in this year’s admissions decisions. The average SAT score for admitted African-American students fell 45 points this year, to 1,738. For Asian, Latino and white students, the averages were much more stable.

So basically after all that exercise, the fact remains that the scores were lower!, in other words? back to the original proposition that to get them educated, you have to drop the scores. So how is that just, fair and equitable?

Technorati Tags: Affirmative Action , Racism , USA , University , Education

Affirmative Action in the USA, who was the midwife? the Unions!

Now this is such an interesting article on who or what helped bring Affirmative Action to life. My previous post on this topic caused quite a lot of angst. But see what the labour unions are actually doing.

I also forgot to mention this point. When one is considering affirmative action for Black Americans, how about the Brown Americans? How do Hispanics fit in? How about Vietnamese? How about Chinese? How about American-Indians? Or Indian-Americans? The sheer intellectual bankruptcy of this entire edifice and the incoherence of the arguments make my sole remaining hair hurt.

Read and Weep!

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

The Strange Career of Affirmative Action
By PAUL MORENO
September 1, 2007; Page A7

This 125th Labor Day, Americans ought to consider one of organized labor's lesser-known contributions to American politics: affirmative action.

For most of their first century, American unions promoted affirmative action for white workers: Trade unions were job monopolies and most often white job monopolies. California unions, for example, led the campaign against Chinese immigrant labor, and the "union label" campaign helped to enable consumers to boycott products made by Chinese workers. "The cigars contained herein are made by WHITE MEN," the original union label read. As for East Coast immigrant labor, the celebrated socialist leader Eugene V. Debs once complained, "The Dago works for small pay and lives far more like a savage or wild beast, than the Chinese."

Above all, unions made it difficult for blacks to earn a living. The first large union federation, the National Labor Union, set the pattern of exclusion and evasion. Although it was broadly known that national and local unions excluded blacks, either by their constitutions or informal custom, the federation claimed that, since its constitution made no reference to the race issue, it was unnecessary to deal with it.

As a result, blacks often helped to break strikes by racially exclusive unions (such as Debs's American Railway Union during the 1894 Pullman strike). In response, unions became even more discriminatory and dismissed black complaints about union exclusion as demands for preferential treatment.

In 1917, Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), claimed that, "Colored workmen have not been asking that equal rights be accorded to them as to white workmen, but [they] somehow convey the idea that they are to be petted or coddled and given special consideration and special privilege." He added, "Of course that can't be done."

In places where unions could not exclude blacks, they adopted racial quotas to limit their number or share of work. These were common in Gulf Coast port cities, and were used by railroad unions into the 20th century.

Black workers often had to fight past white picketers who threatened them with violence or death. And not only picketers. Gov. John R. Tanner of Illinois, a Republican, pledged to stop black replacement workers from breaking a mine workers' strike in 1898, saying he would "shoot to pieces with gatling guns" any train that transported them. An Illinois militia commander swore, "If any Negroes are brought while I am in charge, and they refuse to retreat when ordered to do so, I will order my men to fire."

Progressives also used federal legislation to enable private unions to maintain racial monopolies or even drive black workers out of their jobs. The La Follette Seamen's Act of 1915 sought to sweep Asians out of the merchant ship service. As Gompers told another leading Progressive, Sen. Robert La Follette, the unregulated labor market was "driving not only the American but all white men from the sea."

Empowered under the Railway Labor Act of 1926, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen forced reluctant shippers to help them to eliminate black firemen. The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 forced government contractors to pay the "prevailing" or union wage as a means to prevent them from hiring black non-union workers. The 1941 Southeastern Carriers Agreement (which the black press dubbed the "Hitler Agreement") imposed a 50% quota on black firemen, forbade any hiring of blacks and stripped them of all seniority rights until this quota was attained. It also permitted secret side-agreements to set lower quotas.

The 1935 Wagner Act gave unions the power to organize mass-production industries. It was hailed as a crowning achievement, but civil- rights organizations at the time opposed the act because it did not prohibit racial exclusion -- "the worst piece of legislation ever passed by the Congress," Urban League President Lester Granger called it. (Ironically, the term "affirmative action" made its statutory debut in the Wagner Act, giving to the National Labor Relations Board power to order employers guilty of unfair labor practices to take such "affirmative action" as reinstatement, back pay or promotion.)

By the end of World War II, the federal judiciary recognized the problem of the black worker under federal labor law, and imposed on unions a duty of "fair representation." While not compelled to admit blacks as members, unions certified as exclusive bargaining agents could not use their monopoly power to disadvantage minority-group workers. Nevertheless, since the National Labor Relations Board consistently took the side of white unions, the onus of enforcing the fair representation doctrine fell on individual black workers.

By the 1960s, two decades of executive orders and state fair employment laws to cease discrimination had made little impact on unions. And when Congress finally outlawed employment discrimination in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it included an exemption for "bona fide seniority systems," in order to protect benefits that white workers had won at the expense of blacks over the previous generation.

In the process of trying to overcome this loophole, federal agencies devised the doctrine of "the present effects of past discrimination," which lies at the heart of contemporary affirmative action theory.

The architects of affirmative action began to formulate the "present effects of past discrimination" principle, which they called the "rightful place" doctrine, in the late 1960s, and the federal courts eagerly adopted it. The Supreme Court endorsed it in the 1971 Griggs case. Although an employer may not intentionally discriminate, the under-representation of minority workers is regarded as perpetuating past discrimination.

This theory made sense with regard to already illegal and overt union discrimination. But it metastasized into our general principle of "disparate impact" -- any policy that has racially disproportionate results is presumed unlawful, and thus encourages employers to adopt racial quotas.

And yet the Supreme Court effectively restored the seniority system exemption for unions in 1977. After the unions had taken care of their senior members, the court then gave its imprimatur to "voluntary" quotas in the 1979 Weber case, in which the United Steelworkers set aside half of their skilled apprentice training slots for blacks, and shielded employers against "reverse discrimination" suits by white workers.

Unions accomplished a similar feat of provoking and then escaping quotas in the federal contracting program known as the "Philadelphia Plan." President Lyndon Johnson's Labor Department devised a set of "goals and timetables" to increase the number of blacks in the notoriously "lily-white" construction trades.

The Nixon administration implemented these plans, enraging leaders of the AFL. But after decades of dismissing legitimate black demands for equal treatment as preferential treatment, the unions' condemnation of actual demands for preferential treatment lacked force.

Nixon soon extended the Philadelphia Plan from construction trades to all government contractors -- covering perhaps half of the American work force. And yet, remarkably, the very construction unions that provoked the Philadelphia Plan soon won exemption from it. The Labor Department, now headed by A.F.L.-C.I.O. Construction Trades President Peter Brennan ("the fox was given the duty of guarding the chickens," a former N.L.R.B. chairman noted), substituted less demanding and voluntary "hometown plans" for the quota systems of the original Philadelphia Plan.

Critics usually point to federal bureaucrats and judges as the architects of affirmative action. They ought to remember the unions who provided the materials.

Mr. Moreno is a professor of history at Hillsdale College and the author of "Black Americans and Organized Labor: A New History," (Louisiana State University Press, 2006).

But the Affirmative Action Emperor is Nekkid!!!!

There is an American quote that I love, "The Government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always rely on the support of Paul". There is another related French quote, "the art of taxation is to pluck the maximum amount of feathers from a goose with the minimum amount of hissing"

One thing which really gets my goat is affirmative action on the basis of positive discrimination based upon race, religion, etc. That is one of the most stupid, incoherent, intellectually defunct public policy measures that one can ever see. Take a look at who champions this policy, and you will always see that it is politicians who are doing it for a short term reason.

There is no economic reason for a liberal democracy to single out a certain sect, religious segment etc. for specialised treatment without any sunset clauses or a very good explanation as to why a certain section of society is so privileged.

You will note that there is no measurement for judging who is bad and who is good. It is generally based upon self identification (race, religion, sect, colour, language...). And there is generally no clear statement or case for when the preferential treatment will be ended.

Finally, one would note that if somebody does question this entire edifice, the whole panoply of bureacracy, politicicians, the people who are gaining from this, etc. will rush to talk about everything but the issue.

I have written about this before in 2004. Since then, we have had affirmative action riots where one group of people rioted because another group of people were given the same kind of benefits in India.

We have had a case of clear evidence that affirmative action for blacks in the legal education field is spectacularly failing and is actually producing less number of black lawyers than would have graduated without affirmative actions. According to this story in the WSJ recently about black admissions in law schools, UCLA Law Professor Richard Sander. According to his calculations

"Mr. Sander calculated that if law schools were to use color-blind admissions policies, fewer black law students would be admitted to law schools (3,182 students instead of 3,706), but since those who were admitted would be attending schools where they have a substantial likelihood of doing well, fewer would fail or drop out (403 vs. 670). In the end, more would pass the bar on their first try (1,859 vs. 1,567) and more would eventually pass the bar (2,150 vs. 1,981) than under the current system of race preferences. Obviously, these figures are just approximations, but they are troubling nonetheless."

And when he tried to get more data, he was stonewalled and refused any further data for further research. An objection was, "disclosure risks stigmatizing African American attorneys" or that "the State Bar Association will be sued". But not one good, intellectually coherent argument against this proposition that the very policy that is supposed to improve Black performance is actually leading to a loss of Black lawyers.

The Americans do not know how lucky they are, at least the selection of judges, howsoever flawed, is not based upon affirmative action quotas. Take a look at this story. Now the Indian judiciary is also proposed to be based around racial and caste based quotas.

I look forward to when fighter pilot squadrons have caste based quotas, the Indian cricket team has race based quotas, when medical operations on you will be carried out strictly on the basis of religion based quotas, when icecream and burgers will be served to you strictly on the basis of gender based quotas and parking is allocated based upon sexual orientation quotas.

Weep, World, Weep, for the Emperor is naked.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Extracurricular lesson in free speech

I feel for this lady. In an academic institution or outside, for people to use these skin and race based classifiers is perpetuating these issues. And this is from a non-white, non-christian man. Please do not judge me by the melanin type in my skin or my race (what is it anyway, asian? so what's the common element between me and a Japanese?). It is abundantly clear that people who believe in these classifiers are racists, are up to some kind of hanky panky, are economically involved (i.e. getting money for propagating this idea) or are trying to get some kind of benefits/screw the public. Absolute idiots, and that too in a University. Fie on them. They are able to see race but not character, which is far too much telling on these sad gits. I had an amusing conversation on a british conservative list with this chap who was a supporter of the BNP. And what i told him that under no circumstances will I take him seriously since his way of thinking is based upon melanin levels. How silly!

Criticism of ethnic-themed dorms merits denunciation as a racist.

By ALLYSIA FINLEY

In my Politics of American Government class last winter, I learned that there are limitations on our right of free speech, limits delineated by terms such as "fighting words," "clear and present danger" and libel. During that same term, I also discovered just how restrictive many college students' idea of free speech really is.

In an editorial for a school newspaper, I criticized how the school's four ethnic theme dorms (African-American, American Indian, Asian and Latino) stereotyped minorities by categorizing individuals by race rather than considering broader personal experiences and values. The response: How dare I condemn the established multicultural institutions on campus! Didn't I know that I had no business commenting on the issue since, as one student stated on a campus forum, I was just a "white, libertarian girl from the O.C." Considering how often students refer to their right of free speech when they criticize the school or presidential administration, their reactions to my article were stunning.

I received so many caustic e-mails and messages the weekend after my article was published that my residential adviser actually asked me to inform him if I received any tangible threats. Luckily, these messages were just irrationally irate, not violent. Students accused me of being a racist and an ignoramus because no one they knew had ever objected to the houses. One black girl asked me to be her "Facebook friend," suggesting I didn't have any minority friends or else I wouldn't have written the article. Most students did not respond to my arguments, opting to personally slander me.

One boy called me a racist and then told me that he was "greatly offended by the white perspective that [I] hold." Many minorities actually belittled me for suggesting that the school should evaluate them on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. I wonder if I had quoted Martin Luther King's speech verbatim if they still would have accused me of having a racist, "white perspective." "

A few students complained that I used the word "black" in lieu of "African-American." But they didn't have a problem with my using "white" instead of "Caucasian."

As I've learned in my humanities classes, the words "black" and "Indian" are taboo in academia. Do these words pose a clear and present danger? Only to the person who utters them. But considering the brouhaha that followed my article, they may well be "fighting words." If you use them around college students, prepare for a fight, or at least a scowl. Though I've heard some African-American students call one another "nigger," white students still can't use the neutral term "black."

I felt gratified when some more "open-minded" students responded to my article by calling for an "open dialogue." A few organized a panel discussion on the issue and invited me as a panelist. I agreed, hoping that the discussion might help illuminate my perspective and diffuse some of the hysteria. I didn't know then how broadly, or rather how narrowly, some college students construe the word "dialogue."

The supposedly independent moderator of the panel was the resident director of the black ethnic theme dorm. The four other panelists were current or former residents of the theme dorms, and the entire audience (aside from one student reporter) were either theme dorm residents or their friends. Evidently, the dialogue had only been publicized in the ethnic theme dorms. I was the only one in the room that opposed the dorms. The moderator targeted me with most of her questions and many times took it upon herself to refute my arguments. Those in the audience also grilled me on how I could be so narrow-minded.

The "dialogue" was a travesty. Although the right to free speech supposedly protects minorities, many of the so-called minorities in the room harangued me for openly stating my beliefs. While they refrained from tarring and feathering me, many once again told me that I had no business speaking on the issue of race because I was white. I wondered why they even invited me if I was not allowed to speak about race, which was the focus of the discussion.

I learned that, while students proclaim their own right of free speech, they tend to extend it only to those whose opinions are politically correct.