Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!aero!mingus@cbnewsl.ATT.COM
From: mingus@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (Damballah Wedo)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: AA, continued
Message-ID: <2881@cbnewsl.ATT.COM>
Date: 14 Nov 89 23:41:54 GMT
References: <16042@duke.cs.duke.edu>
Sender: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Reply-To: mingus@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (Damballah Wedo)
Organization: The Poto Mitan in the Houmfor
Lines: 36
Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org


< >I wrote: 
< >Given representation at the inputs, we can expect, if the process
< >is free of discrimination (as ensured by EEO), that there will be
< >representation at the outputs.
 
< gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel) (in <16042@duke.cs.duke.edu>):
< So why do you insist that in *every* AA program the race/sex of the
< applicants will be mentioned?  Why *no* AA program can find
< these perfect standards and stop asking about race/sex?

Huh? I've been trying for three days to parse this, and relate it back to
what I said, and failed. I said that the point of AA is to increase the
number of affected class members at the inputs of a given process; THEN
to let the non-discriminatory process mandated by EEO do its thing.
I don' t have the faintest idea where  perfect standards and asking about
race/sex comes into it.

< >Yes, there are stupid implementations of AA that hire or promote
< >affected class members regardless of their qualifications. The principle
< >of AA cannot he held responsible for such stupidity, any more that
< >capitalism can be held responsible for Ivan Boesky, 
< 
< Ivan Boesky is a small failure of capitalism.  If every broker had been
< someone like Boesky than it was a *big* failure of capitalism (that was
< more or less the situation before the Depression).

Exactly. And a cretinous AA implementation is no reflection on AA itself.

< If no AA program can achieve its targets without asking about
< sex/race of the applicants then it is a big failure of AA.

More of that race/sex of applicants stuff again. Whatever *that* means.
-- 
Marcel-Franck Simon             mingus@attunix.ATT.COM, attunix!mingus

	" Papa Loko, ou se' van, ou-a pouse'-n ale'
	  Nou se' papiyon, n'a pote' nouvel bay Agwe' "