The problem is equality of opportunity is it's invariably applied in a way that ignores some very racist and uneven starting conditions and the effects of the past. Consider as a small example how schools are funded in the US, which is largely by local property taxes, so poorer places have poorer schools. These areas are heavily skewed towards minority populations because of some extremely racist issues in our past like redlining which kept blacks and other minorities out of the housing boom which drove a lot of middle class wealth growth through the 60s to 00s. So we build on this cycle generation after generation where kids in poor areas go to poorly funded schools and experience poor educational outcomes.

Even if we solve the funding problem it's still not actually equal opportunity because the poorer kids don't get the same support outside of school due to parents working longer hours at lower paying jobs because they got a bad education or living in a crummy house with lead paint (because that's all your parents could afford) or living in a town with contaminated water (Flint is just the one to grab headlines cities all over the country have abysmally high lead levels). Even if you want to blame community culture for some of these issues the question becomes where do you think that culture comes from, perhaps just maybe it comes from decades of lack of opportunity and systemic abuse?

How do you possibly hope to close the gap in our system where wealth almost invariably builds on wealth?

tl;dr: Equality of outcome doesn't mean everyone has to have the exact same exact life, it's just acknowledging our opportunities are directly tied to the outcomes of the generation before us.

> Consider as a small example how schools are funded in the US, which is largely by local property taxes, so poorer places have poorer schools.

Varies from state to state. In CA, only about 25% of K-12 funding comes from property taxes: https://ed100.org/lessons/whopays

I know of several school districts nearby that contain nothing but relatively new $1mm+ houses and abysmal school ratings. I would believe that there's some kind of complex nonlinear correlation between property values and quality of school, but it is very clearly not an easy "more expensive houses == better schools" calculation.

> perhaps just maybe it comes from decades of lack of opportunity and systemic abuse?

A fine point, and certainly not limited to any one race. I'm all in favor of helping those with fewer opportunities growing up, and I don't really care what race they are. If they happen to be mostly $RACE, it doesn't matter to me.

By changing the way schools are funded, and helping poor students. No racial discrimination necessary.

My point was principally about the issues with 'equality of opportunity' in the US because of the massive inequality already present.

On your note though yes with unlimited money we could do that, given limited budget though targeting the assistance to those most affected makes sense. Also a program like that also does little to nothing for people who aren't very young when it's started. Also ultimately that's an equality of outcome style solution because it's giving additional resources to some.

(this is more about things like the Harvard affirmative action program) I think there's also a meaningful distinction to draw between inclusive discrimination like affirmative action and exclusive discrimination of groups. I know it's an extremely tough line to define at a government level but they feel like very distinct categories of activities.

> meaningful distinction to draw between inclusive discrimination like affirmative action and exclusive discrimination of groups.

The only distinction I see is in the rethorical spin that people make. A preferential treatment of a set of people is exactly equal to a discriminatory treatment of the complement of that set of people (e.g. positive discrimination of black people equals negative discrimination of non-black people).

"The problem is equality of opportunity is it's invariably applied in a way that ignores some very racist and uneven starting conditions and the effects of the past."

Then that's where the energy ought to go. Adjusting the end result (e.g. by adjusting the college admission criteria based on race/ethnicity) doesn't really fix the root cause; it's a band-aid on America's broken leg.

If the starting conditions are unequal, then that is by definition not equal opportunity, so correcting those conditions should be Priority 1.

>our opportunities are directly tied to the outcomes of the generation before us

They are related, but "directly tied to" seems hyperbolic and deterministic.

Frederick Douglass is an obvious exceptional example of a human being transcending the outcomes of previous generations.

Sure he did great doesn't change the fact that individual examples like Frederick Douglass don't negate that fact that intergenerational incomes are pretty inelastic in America. It's a statistical problem across all slices of the population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_...

I am also interested in equality of opportunity- but how do I measure that everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve something? How do I measure the opportunity to consume nutritious food? The opportunity for access to the same healthcare?

It goes deeper than that if you go into cultural biases prevalent in poor (regardless of race) communities. Cigarettes, scratch-offs, crappy food.. what counts as opportunity?

Is being raised a certain way tantamount to having 'less opportunity' to make better micro-decisions?