Wednesday, October 24, 2012

A Quick Thought on Affirmative Action 2 (And, Yes, My Good Friends, Dmarks and John Myste, Are More than Welcome to Chime in Here)

Thomas Sowell wrote a powerful book in 1990 entitled, "Preferential Policies: An International Perspective". And, in it, he thoroughly examined the effects of affirmative action policies throughout a great number of countries that have attempted them. What was Mr. Sowell's overall assessment? He could not find one single instance of any group ever having gone from poverty to affluence predominantly through such political means (and even in the one instance - Malaysia - where there was a modicum of movement, that was more than offset by the violence which accrued). Yes, politics can and has played a pivotal role in other regards (voting rights, for example) but it is predominantly skills, industriousness, and savings which promulgate economic advancement. Thus spake Mr. Sowell anyway............................................................................................P.S. Here is one of the examples that Mr. Sowell pointed to in his analysis, underscoring his belief that affirmative action not only doesn't provide relief to minorities but can actually sometimes hold them back. He points to the affirmative action policy as practiced by the University of California at Berkeley (the Penn of the west coast). He followed the careers of all the affirmative action black students at Berkeley and found that a full 70% of them had eventually flunked out - not because they were stupid but because Berkeley simply wasn't a good fit for them. These same individuals, had they instead gone to Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State, or Pacific, would have undoubtedly passed and gone on to respectable careers BUT because of a bunch of do-gooders in Washington and Sacramento trying to manipulate the situation, not quite so much.......Look, as I've stated before, I am NOT categorically opposed to affirmative action, but when I hear statistics such as this, it does in fact give me pause.

7 comments:

dmarks said...

This shows some critical thinking: looking to see if a policy is effective? And there are fundamental flaws with this policy which necessarily lead to its bad results: if you promote someone who is uneducated, unprepared, and unqualified, they remain so despite the promotion (or hiring).

Aside from its by-definition racist nature, and the problem of it erroneosly lumping very successful sub-groups of blacks and also individuals in the 'damaged' category.

BB-Idaho said...

I agree with dmarks, and would amplify a bit; we note folks like
Neil Degrasse Tyson, Condoleeza Rice, Clarence Thomas (and Sowell
himself) without knowing what their
circumstances vis a vis affirmative action were- not much, if at all, I suspect, yet they are
subject to the conjecture and certainly branded by their opponents as having a leg up through Af-Ac.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

I can't speak for Rice and Thomas but Sowell I believe got into Harvard in 1955 based solely on the fact that he killed on the entrance exam.......I guess that the big issue with affirmative action is that it tends to help blacks who don't really need it and hurts those actually do. One of the things that Sowell cites is how many large businesses are forced to look at their ratio of white-collar to blue-collar minority hires (the government says that it should be a certain ratio) and when in fact these companies are not able to find qualified accountants, chemists, engineers (African-Americans tend to get their Phds in education and not mathematics or engineering), etc., they end up hiring fewer black janitors, housekeepers, and security guards. This obviously hurts the black working-class.

dmarks said...

The bad results of this ill-conceived policy are manifold.

Marcus said...

My concern is what were the High School Guidence Counselors telling these kids? They obviously did these kids a diservice sending them to instituitions to which they were unprepared...a better tact would be to sell a university where the kid could succeed...it would also save the parents a few $$$

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Yeah, Marcus, there was definitely some bad counseling going on. And the thing is, that BA from Cal State Fullerton could have possibly gotten them ready for an advanced degree LATER ON at Berkeley. But now we'll never know.

dmarks said...
This comment has been removed by the author.