Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site mnetor.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!clewis From: clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis) Newsgroups: net.politics,net.social,net.women,net.flame Subject: Re: Discrimination and Affirmative Action Message-ID: <1059@mnetor.UUCP> Date: Thu, 20-Jun-85 12:29:28 EDT Article-I.D.: mnetor.1059 Posted: Thu Jun 20 12:29:28 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 20-Jun-85 22:14:17 EDT References: <566@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> <449@unc.UUCP> <2973@cca.UUCP> Reply-To: clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis) Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada Lines: 57 Xref: utcs net.politics:9293 net.social:655 net.women:5993 net.flame:10358 Summary: In article <2973@cca.UUCP> diego@cca.UUCP (Diego Gonzalez) writes: > > I'd like to say something out of my own experience. I could give >you a lesson in sociology and anthropology. But I have been reading the >net discussion about the affirmative action issue and feel that I should >give you some insight. >... >affirmative action law or laws, I felt that equal access guarantees were >sufficient. I no longer believe this. Here is why. >... > The courts and lawmakers of the past two decades agreed broadly >that the kind of exclusory discrimination described above had occurred >and that it should be halted and corrected as soon as possible. Their >... >positions from which "tradition" had perennially barred them. Further, >they knew that from the point of strictest "fairness," affirmative >action would for a time create its own form of discrimination. However, >in the long term a policy actively pursuing true employment equality >could accomplish in fact a long denied constitutional principle. Thanks for the well thought out discussion on AA. I think that it boils down to a difference of opinion in the following area: Given that AA is not strictly fair in the short term, I personally believe that in the short-term AA will not only be unfair, but in fact generate MORE discrimination. Maybe not in the workplace, but certainly in personally held beliefs by those people who were passed over (or thought they were) due to AA. In my opinion, then, AA may result in the long term with a fully integrated workplace but, perhaps, with a lot of internal tension. Prejudice would still exist (and even, possibly be worse), only be a lot harder to measure - "Yeah, the workplace is fully integrated, but everybody hates each other's guts!". (sorta the problem in Lebanon - the place is mixed, but polarized.) I'd personally prefer that it take a little longer for the fully integrated workplace to appear which wouldn't have the resentment. If it was simply a matter of hiring people to fill quotas, irrespective of ability (overstating, but you get the idea), in the hopes of raising the average qualifications of people to some sort of population average, then I suppose I could live with it - long-term gains would outweigh the short. But, there is another factor - the long-term resentment mentioned in the previous paragraph. Over the last 20 years or so, particularly in Canada which has little AA legislation, equal access legislation does seem to have been working. Quite well in fact. Racial groups and women are MUCH better represented (particularly at the higher levels) than they've ever been before. Sure, it's not totally integrated w.r.t. population statistics, but it's getting there, and, maybe, just maybe, the "natural" level (on a sector by sector basis) isn't EXACTLY the same as the population statistics. Maybe, for instance, the number of women that would enter Engineering disciplines (given no social biasing) wouldn't be the oft-quoted 51%. -- Chris Lewis, UUCP: {allegra, linus, ihnp4}!utzoo!mnetor!clewis BELL: (416)-475-8980 ext. 321