A new kind of inequality
Affirmative action promotes discrimination
February 20, 2007
Joshua Duvauchelle
Affirmative action, intended to do away with disparity and inequality, is now hotly contested the world over. Noble in its original intentions, it strove to create diversity and equality in the workplace and in universities. But have we moved beyond equality and too far into the realm of special treatment?
Affirmative action, while based on good intentions, instigates an inequality that borders on racism. All criteria need to be taken into consideration and careful measures implemented to ensure that one group isn’t unfairly promoted at the risk of disenfranchising another group.
In the political sphere, affirmative action has recently received renewed media coverage. On Feb. 9, women’s organizations in Kenya announced their demands for affirmative action in the nation’s upcoming general election. Some of the MPs at the meeting expressed their support, while one ambassador said she would rather work on “broader” issues.
The ambassador might have chosen a different word if she remembered that “promoting diversity” has become a catch phrase in the current political atmosphere. Conferences and formal debates have been organized worldwide, throwing around academic terms like “redress” and “societal demographics.”
However, people are rarely satisfied with empty talk by scholars in suit and tie. In the past, some activists have even resorted to riots to voice their concerns over affirmative action. Britain’s Summer of Violence in 2001 was sparked, in part, by an economic disparity between poor predominantly white areas and areas that received extra funding for being made up of resident minority groups.
It is within this politically tense context that the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission says that affirmative action “eliminate[s] discrimination” and makes up for past discrimination. However, the underlying problem is the way affirmative action “solves” discrimination by creating more of it. It gives preferences to minorities, even if their peers are just as qualified, or more.
Critics of affirmative action say this is in excess of what is needed to promote equality and diversity in the work place and university. They point to the United Nations’ statement which orders that affirmative action programs cannot create “unequal or separate rights for different racial groups after the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved.” In agreement, non-partisan women’s rights organization Real Women of Canada says that appointments should be made on the basis of qualifications and individual merit, rather than gender or race.
When affirmative action was first getting started, a white student named Allan Bakke applied twice for admission to the Medical School of the University of California at Davis. Although his grades and test scores were far better than all other applications, he was refused admission both times in favour of less-qualified minority students. He ended up having to sue the school before gaining acceptance. This sort of ‘reverse discrimination’ violates the United Nations’ guidelines. Affirmative action has overstepped its lawful bounds by creating even wider ranges of inequality.
The argument over affirmative action will only continue. According to the Canadian Counsel of Social Development, minority groups in Canada have skyrocketed by 300 per cent in the last 20 years. Similar influxes are occurring in many other Western countries, such as the U.S. As new generations enter the university and workforce, politicians will need to review the repercussions of this controversial law and decide its future as a useful tool for increasing “diversity.”
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