Newsgroups: ut.general
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!csri.toronto.edu!clarke
From: clarke@csri.toronto.edu (Jim Clarke)
Subject: Re: "Joining the count"
Message-ID: <8903311640.AA11832@yorkville.csri.toronto.edu>
Keywords: Are you a visible minority?
Organization: University of Toronto, CSRI
References: <8903232049.AA29714@yorkmills.csri.toronto.edu> <89Mar30.123150est.8725@ois.db.toronto.edu> <8903301755.AA07836@russell.csri.toronto.edu> <89Mar30.165735est.8725@ois.db.toronto.edu>
Distribution: ut
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 89 11:40:13 EST

In article <89Mar30.165735est.8725@ois.db.toronto.edu> vassos@db.toronto.edu (Vassos Hadzilacos) writes:
>In article <8903301755.AA07836@russell.csri.toronto.edu> clarke@csri.toronto.edu (Jim Clarke -- that's me) writes:
>
>>But the question being asked [which "racial" group do you identify
>>yourself as a member of -- VH] is meaningless.  Asking people to classify
>>themselves into racial groups in order to serve beneficial social purposes
>>is not more defensible intellectually than classifying them by decree in
>>order to serve evil purposes.  If a question is meaningless, you shouldn't
>>ask it, much less take action on the basis of any answers.
>
> [true stuff about racial discrimination omitted]
>
>In effect the survey is asking: "Are you a member of a group that is
>disadvantaged because of social prejudices?" This, unfortunately, is not
>a meaningless question. I refuse to answer this question when I feel that
>doing so will serve evil purposes but I  will gladly answer it when I feel
>that doing so will serve beneficial social purposes. The distinction
>between the two cases appears perfectly intellectually defensible to me.

If Philippe Rushton attempts "racial" classification in order to find out
about the abilities of different "races", is that OK?  No, because the
classification is meaningless and the conclusions will be invalid, and may
even be used for pernicious purposes.

If the U of T Administration attempts "racial" classification in order to
improve employment equity, is that OK?  Of course, because the administrators
in their beneficent wisdom will act only in our best interest.

Really?  If we use bad arguments to support good purposes, we're going to
have a hard time preventing their use for evil purposes.

Now if you want to ask me Vassos's proposed question, "Are you a member of a
group that is disadvantaged because of social prejudices?" then I'll be happy
to answer.  You might even want to specify the *sort* of group you mean,
by mentioning real or imagined physical characteristics such as skin colour
but not height or eye colour, but as long as the real point is whether I
think people like me are disadvantaged for invalid reasons, I see no reason
to object to the question.

The bottom line for me (-- a fine phrase; where's it gone these days?) is
that you should say and ask what you really mean, instead of dressing it
up in pseudo-scholarly, quasi-legal mumbo-jumbo.  Saying "visible minority"
for "race" is another example.
-- 
Jim Clarke -- Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4
              (416) 978-4058
clarke@csri.toronto.edu     or    clarke@csri.utoronto.ca
   or ...!{uunet, pyramid, watmath, ubc-cs}!utai!utcsri!clarke