Issues Poll 3: Affirmative Action

[Dunefar]

No gun control at all.    - 0 (0%)
Minimal gun control - minor safeguards and keeping the worst things out of circulation.    - 3 (9.1%)
Moderate gun control - background checks, strong regulation, no automatic weapons.    - 23 (69.7%)
Strong gun control - most things banned or heavily regulated.    - 6 (18.2%)
Gun ban.    - 1 (3%)

This one hit exactly where I thought it would. There's a lot of middle standers with a few lumps on the sides and almost no extremists. It's interesting how gun control has become less of a hot button issue the last several years, at least in my eyes. This is reflected here rather well.  I'd call this result centrist; gun control is an issue with a lot of room for wiggling and variance.

Anyway, this issue is a little spicier, since gun control felt like it didn't spark anything interesting. Again, feel free to post why you feel you do and why you voted as you did. Again, this is another US-centric issue, though foreign views are welcome.

[Dunefar]

I voted neutral. Intellectually I feel affirmative action is a poisonous remedy. It's useful for curing one problem but brings about it's own malaise. Emotionally I don't care about affirmative action at all, it's not an issue that concerns me. So I make a point of staying out of it, let those who care about it argue.

[NotMiki]

Us Americans agree on a lot of the big stuff, we really do.  What we disagree on is what "fair" means.  I tell this to my mother sometimes when she's angry at conservatives.  I have to tell it to myself on occasion, too.  Affirmative action is probably the area where the range of opinions on what 'fair' means is the greatest.  I still wrestle with it.

I'll be brief: I support affirmative action policies that are enacted with the goal of hiring employees or admitting students without respect to their race/sex/whatever, but I am opposed to policies that seek to increase minority/women/whatever populations for other reasons like diversity.  I am against employers/schools using quotas or similar models that give minorities preference over majorities.

I'm not getting into school integration.  It's interesting, but it's its own thing, really.

[Ranmilia]

Voted yes weakly, but I feel like just putting it up straight like this is too vague to really give a useful answer.  Affirmative action where, how and why?  Jobs?  University applications?  Public, private, both?  Mandatory?  Standards?  Individual organization discretion?  For genders?  For races/ethnic groups?  For other groups?

Ehn.  So just in general... I tend to feel that its common modern implementations produce more good than harm, and that the "promote diversity" reason is actually quite a good one.  In a vacuum it sounds iffy, but the world is not a vacuum.  Discrimination very provably exists and does harm, and even in the absence of active discrimination concerns, working or studying in a more diverse group is measurably more productive than in a homogenous one.  (see http://arec.oregonstate.edu/diversity/Affirmative%20Action%20and%20Private%20Sector%20Productivity--Heimer.pdf section 3 for some examples of studies suggesting that not only is this true, but even the simple advertisement of affirmative action programs existing encourages more highly qualified minority applications and has an overall beneficial effect.)

[NotMiki]

I'm wary of affirmative action plans that aim to increase diversity, because diversity is concerned with the outcome, not the process.

Take a pool of 100 employees.  Every single one of them is a white male.

If your goal is equal opportunity, you look at this pool and say, "the fact that there are no minorities or women is evidence of discrimination in hiring, therefore we must change the hiring practice so it does not discriminate."

If your goal is diversity, you look at the pool and say, "the fact that there are no minorities or women is a bad thing irrespective of whether it was a product of discrimination, therefore we must change hiring practices so that it results in more minorities and women, even if we have to discriminate against white men to do it."

I'm strongly against discrimination so I oppose the second line of reasoning, even if (and I have no trouble believing this) a diverse workplace is more productive.

That said, I have trouble taking a hard line against diversity, because people should feel comfortable striving to have any job out there, and diversity-oriented policies create an environment where people feel comfortable doing so.  That environment is surely a worthy goal, and yet...I'm not sure it would be worth the tradeoff of discriminating on the basis of sex or race that it would take to create it.  In a sense, using an outcome-oriented approach to force diversity is about making the process fair for future generations, but at a cost of treating current job/education-seekers unfairly.  And that I understand but can't accept.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Affirmative Action really needs a reworking. I strongly oppose it as it currently exists because it looks at whether someone is black or white or Asian, not that person's background. 

Example:  There was a black family who lived down the block. Other than, you know, the obvious being black thing, they were more or less indistinguishable from every other family that lived in our part of Suburbia. Somehow their son's presence is more valuable than the children of the blue-collar sawmill workers who couldn't afford to live in the Suburbs?  I'm of the opinion that people's life experiences are a touch more valuable than making sure there are an adequate amount of black people in graduating class photos, myself.

The idea is sound, but it's stuck in the 1960s.

[Grefter]

I voted that it is strongly needed.  There is still a ton of work that needs to be done.  Rob's point there is definitely one of them.

As long as there is still a significant disparity between wages and stuff I will be in favour of it.  The current schema for it is definitely an artifact of its time though and back when it was introduced?  Massively important.   Affirmitive Action is a positive policy that has just aged drastically.

Part of the reason it evolves slowly is due to how resistant both law and business is to change.  Why do you want to change this thing!  We only just started doing it!

[metroid composite]

Ok, I assumed this poll was specifically about the controvercial stuff (quotas) not about nondiscriminatory hiring (which I assume everyone here supports).

Quotas...meh, I voted neutral.  The truth is, where your parents are in life is statistically very relevant for where you will end up.  So the theory goes, "let's give this generation a leg up so that the next generation will be on even footing."  Or, in the case of women, there is a huge statistical correlation between having female role models and female peers and women actually specializing in the subject.  And to be fair, I think there are now starting to be specialist fields that are fairly female dominated where men don't feel comfortable either.  Certainly I've been in university English Lit classes that were 95% female (and women joked that all the guys in English were gay anyway).

So...yeah, I can see why quotas are done.  I wouldn't go as far as saying "necessary": they speed up a process that happens naturally when people get their rights.  Is this worth speeding up?  Well...maybe.  Is this "necessary"?  In 2011, no, I don't think it's necessary.  Hence I voted neutral.

[Ranmilia]

I'm wary of affirmative action plans that aim to increase diversity, because diversity is concerned with the outcome, not the process.

Take a pool of 100 employees.  Every single one of them is a white male.

If your goal is equal opportunity, you look at this pool and say, "the fact that there are no minorities or women is evidence of discrimination in hiring, therefore we must change the hiring practice so it does not discriminate."

If your goal is diversity, you look at the pool and say, "the fact that there are no minorities or women is a bad thing irrespective of whether it was a product of discrimination, therefore we must change hiring practices so that it results in more minorities and women, even if we have to discriminate against white men to do it."

I'm strongly against discrimination so I oppose the second line of reasoning, even if (and I have no trouble believing this) a diverse workplace is more productive.

I think there's a bit of a logical leap here, though, because (unless employers pick applications to hire totally at random!) the very act of hiring itself is a process of "discrimination" - on the basis of experience, purported or tested ability to do the job, and very often on the subjective basis of how personally likable the interviewer thinks the applicant is.  First, it's currently impossible to remove unconscious (or conscious!) racial/gender/etc discrimination from that last one, and arguably impossible to from the rest of the criteria as well (for example, studies show clear racial disparity on nearly all educational standardized test scores). 

And second, well, if you take that same pool of 100 white male employees, and say that the goal is simply creating the most productive total workplace possible, whatever it takes and no regard for anything else - then the fact that there are no minorities or women is evidence of suboptimal hiring practices, given the evidence that more diverse groups are more productive.  It's a matter of looking at it from a group rather than individual perspective, the top five best applicants for a position are not necessarily the best team of five you can assemble from the pool.

[Dunefar]

Voted yes weakly, but I feel like just putting it up straight like this is too vague to really give a useful answer.  Affirmative action where, how and why?  Jobs?  University applications?  Public, private, both?  Mandatory?  Standards?  Individual organization discretion?  For genders?  For races/ethnic groups?  For other groups?

Fair enough, I was trying to be broad on purpose. Would you guys like me to make the next poll about more specific issues within affirmative action?

[Captain K.]

No, weakly.  While discrimination is bad, hiring (or giving a college scholarship to, etc.) someone specifically because they are not a white male is worse.  As a white male who has been through reverse-discrimination in the past, the practice engenders a lot of ill feelings towards the less-qualified person who got the job.

[NotMiki]

I think there's a bit of a logical leap here, though, because (unless employers pick applications to hire totally at random!) the very act of hiring itself is a process of "discrimination" - on the basis of experience, purported or tested ability to do the job, and very often on the subjective basis of how personally likable the interviewer thinks the applicant is.  First, it's currently impossible to remove unconscious (or conscious!) racial/gender/etc discrimination from that last one, and arguably impossible to from the rest of the criteria as well (for example, studies show clear racial disparity on nearly all educational standardized test scores).

And second, well, if you take that same pool of 100 white male employees, and say that the goal is simply creating the most productive total workplace possible, whatever it takes and no regard for anything else - then the fact that there are no minorities or women is evidence of suboptimal hiring practices, given the evidence that more diverse groups are more productive.  It's a matter of looking at it from a group rather than individual perspective, the top five best applicants for a position are not necessarily the best team of five you can assemble from the pool.

Two comments.

1: when I say employers need to change their hiring practices so as not to discriminate, I mean so as not to discriminate on the basis of sex or race (or a laundry list of other impermissible factors, but I'm gonna leave it at sex and race for the sake of simplicity).  I don't mean employers should hire using a dartboard.  And though it may be impossible to do hiring without some form of unconscious bias, employers can at the very least use demographic data to see whether such a bias is present in their hiring practices.    I understand this is an area where proving discrimination is fraught with uncertainty, but if it can be proved, it must be remedied.

2: If optimal work environments lead to less discrimination on the basis of sex and race, then great, but if they lead to more discrimination on the basis of sex and race, then employers must settle for suboptimal work environments.  Take a hypothetical scenario where it would be optimal to exclude African Americans from hiring.  I'm sure such a scenario exists (door-to-door salesmen in KKKville, Alabama?).  I'm opposed to allowing employers to discriminate on the basis of race even if it is optimal.

[Grefter]

You wanted diverse discussion Dune.  Asking open questions is how you do that.  This seems fine to me.  Depends what sort of things you are wanting to gauge here though.

The textbook example of what Jim is describing is height and weight requirements for Flight attendants.  When it was strictly a Stewardess rather than something dudes could do there was a big push for tall skinny flight attendants.  So tall thin women were all they could "safely" employ.  That they were hot as hell just helped right? 

Now it has been proven that the height requirements to safely stow baggage is no where near what they were claiming back in the day and um well plenty of good dude flight attendants obviously and we are packing more people on to airplanes these days.  Affirmitive action at work and doing a damn good job.

On a related note as to why Affirmitive Action is still something that is relevant, if you are ever flying or near an international airport, check out the flight staff on an Airline that isn't necessarilly hiring quite as much from the West.  Daaaaaaaaaamn there is some fine looking women exclusively serving those positions.  Not that I am going to complain that they are out there working or anything.  This is just something that isn't really implemented all over the world.

[NotMiki]

Ok, I assumed this poll was specifically about the controversial stuff (quotas) not about nondiscriminatory hiring (which I assume everyone here supports).

There is an argument to be made that laws that bar discriminatory hiring are bad, actually.  First: employers will want to appear to comply with laws barring discrimination and this may lead to de facto quotas, which are of course forms of race/sex discrimination themselves.  As a result, such laws may reinforce the idea (and the reality) that minorities are getting jobs at the expense of more-qualified white males.

Relatedly, laws barring discrimination are expensive for businesses because if businesses are sued, even if they have not been discriminating, it will cost them money to defend themselves in court.  The only parties that typically benefit from weak lawsuits are lawyers.  Depending on what the ratio of meritorious claims to unmeritorious claims is, the entire enterprise may cost more than it's worth.  Of course, businesses are the ones paying those costs, so your mileage may vary.

I don't find either of those reasons convincing, primarily because the legal standards for proving a discriminatory hiring practice are very high, so it's not my impression that very many unmeritorious claims go far enough that they cost businesses much money.

*ahem* full disclosure: I'll be working for a plaintiff-side employment discrimination litigation firm later this summer <_<

[metroid composite]

Ok, I assumed this poll was specifically about the controversial stuff (quotas) not about nondiscriminatory hiring (which I assume everyone here supports).

There is an argument to be made that laws that bar discriminatory hiring are bad, actually.  First: employers will want to appear to comply with laws barring discrimination and this may lead to de facto quotas, which are of course forms of race/sex discrimination themselves.  As a result, such laws may reinforce the idea (and the reality) that minorities are getting jobs at the expense of more-qualified white males.

Relatedly, laws barring discrimination are expensive for businesses because if businesses are sued, even if they have not been discriminating, it will cost them money to defend themselves in court.  The only parties that typically benefit from weak lawsuits are lawyers.  Depending on what the ratio of meritorious claims to unmeritorious claims is, the entire enterprise may cost more than it's worth.  Of course, businesses are the ones paying those costs, so your mileage may vary.

Yeah, you could make a lot of the same arguments for, say, environmental regulations.  It's a lot worse for companies, because they need to fill out a bunch of extra paperwork just to prove they're complying with regulations.  And all that extra paperwork that's being filed hurts the environment too!  We should just trust companies to do the right thing, and it'll be better for everyone!

Yeah, not buying it.




Now, what might be a good topic for an upcoming debate is...what groups should have nondiscrimination laws?  (I don't think something like race will be controversial on the DL, but something like mental disorder could create debate, and gender nonconformity has created debate in the past).  Furthermore, how far should we go to enforce equality?  (I.e. you have to lift X pounds to be considered for this job...but X is different by gender--are these kinds of different requirements good or bad?)

[NotMiki]

Yeah, you could make a lot of the same arguments for, say, environmental regulations.  It's a lot worse for companies, because they need to fill out a bunch of extra paperwork just to prove they're complying with regulations.  And all that extra paperwork that's being filed hurts the environment too!  We should just trust companies to do the right thing, and it'll be better for everyone!

Yeah, not buying it.

There's going to be a point, somewhere, where something is so expensive for a company and produces so little social benefit that it's bad policy.  Take privacy disclosures.  Creditors are required by federal law to send you a disclosure form that says what they're doing with your personal information every 6 months or so.  Have you ever read it?  If so, did you get any benefit from knowing that your credit card shares your information with non-affiliated companies?  Credit card companies argue such disclosures are a waste of paper that cost the company money and produce pretty much no benefit to consumers.  They may be right about that.

[Dunefar]

I'll be closing this in a day or two, get your votes in now.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I voted neutral. I'm not even 100% sure on my own feelings, and furthermore they do vary based on case, etc.

I firmly believe that it has been necessary in the past and continues to be necessary in some situations in the present. Do think it can be taken too far though.

[Dunefar]

Okay, this topic is done! Thanks for voting!