Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84; site mhuxr.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mfs From: mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (SIMON) Newsgroups: net.women Subject: Re: Discrimination and Affirmative Action Message-ID: <355@mhuxr.UUCP> Date: Mon, 17-Jun-85 22:19:02 EDT Article-I.D.: mhuxr.355 Posted: Mon Jun 17 22:19:02 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 18-Jun-85 20:16:03 EDT References: <338@unc.UUCP> <337@mhuxr.UUCP> <219@kontron.UUCP> <344@mhuxr.UUCP> <27181@lanl.ARPA> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Lines: 44 > I thought we were talking about fairness and nondiscrimination, not > about whether a particular individual can *manage*. To use this line > of reasoning, why do we need affirmative action, EEO or any of the > other institutions that this discussion is about? If the person in > the earlier of the two quotes can do it why don't we just say that > anyone else can do it and get rid of EEO and AA? > 1) Someone who is a white male is better able to "manage" than a non- white female. 2) Fairness and nondiscrimination may have had something to do with it, but the poster provided no proof that he had been discriminated against except to say that he was denied a scholarship and that in some quite unconnected way, "minority youth" received scholarship(s) He failed to link the two facts and show discrimination. > Hurt in the same > sense as a person who doesn't get a deserved salary increase or > promotion is hurt. One can only conjecture about how the individual > managed, if indeed he (?) did, to graduate, etc as assumed in the > second quote, but it seems reasonable the it was by virtue of a lot of > work *while* going to school. To say that he was not hurt by being > denied a scholarship is to say that he would not have benefitted by > having the time spent working either to study or just to relax. I'm > afraid that I think that is bullshit! > > Charlie Sorsby "Deserved" in this case is subjective, seeing as how the complete facts are not known. This discussion has little to do with AA, anyway. I have posted several articles that try to clear away some of the ideological ravings and look at the reality: the relevant sections of the Civil Rights Act and employer AA plans. The tewndency to assume that any minority ot woman who beat out a white male for some position was somehow undeserving and that the white male was cheated is curious and unsettling to me. It strikes me as possible that however deserving the particular gentleman may have been, he was beaten out by some more deserving person who happened to be female or of a minority group. Until there are facts on the subject, all this conjecture is pointless anyway. Marcel Simon