It will always be a topic deserving of special dispensation.
Yes to both conflicting ideas, how about that. AA was under consideration in the mid aughts and the SCOTUS essentially said it was a special exception, and not to be permanent, but they would allow it at the time.
https://gspp.berkeley.edu/research-and-impact/publications/w...
In her opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor concluded that affirmative action in college admissions is justifiable, but not in perpetuity: “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest [in student body diversity] approved today.”
We conclude that under reasonable assumptions, African American students will continue to be substantially underrepresented among the most qualified college applicants for the foreseeable future. The magnitude of the underrepresentation is likely to shrink—in our most optimistic simulation, somewhat over half of the gap that would be opened by the elimination of race preferences will be closed by the projected improvement in black achievement.
I completely disagree. Still after another 50 years? Another 150 years? Still 1000 years from now? 10,000? At some point, it has to be eliminated as a special dispensation topic. When exactly that is, and whether that is in the past or the future can reasonably be debated, but to conclude that it should be permanent is well beyond reason, IMO.
If white supremacy would stop being perpetuated, we could stop worrying about the effects of white supremacy. But the discussion doesn't have to end after a specific timeframe just because you feel uncomfortable with it.
A society with severe imbalances in wealth, health, and power should examine how those imbalances came about. If it turns out that they're directly caused by racism, that society should consider race-conscious remedies. This is true regardless of how long the racist policies have been perpetuated, and it's true regardless of whether or not the federal government of the USA still exists.
My only disagreement was with the conclusion that such remedies should be ordained at this moment to be "always be a topic deserving of special dispensation" since always is a very/infinitely long time.
You design one for its ever-lasting nature.
You design the other to achieve a specific outcome.
Reminder that even the oldest of official policies in the US are just over 300 years old. Two magnitudes less. Most policies currently in use are less than a hundred years old and are a result of changes and amendments to those that proceeded them.
Even common law is only a thousand years old and has been revised over time.
None of that has anything to do with the issue still being relevant now and for the foreseeable future, ie the colloquial definition of “always”. When that eventually changes, then it can be re-evaluated, but that’s not likely to happen within our lifetimes, so it should very much be remembered when policies are made.
If we can do that in 50 years (doubtful) then we can stop talking about it. Ditto for the other time frames you mention.
Even then, we shouldn't really stop talking about it. Forgetting our history increases the likelihood that we'll slip back into old patterns and do it again.
Further, humans are social primates. As books like DeWaal's Chimpanzee Politics demonstrate, power hierarchies that seem very familiar predate humanity itself. It's perfectly possible that violently enforced group hierarchies are a natural outcome that can be based on any sort of visible difference. Since race is such a visible and obvious difference, it's plausible that for the rest of our history, we'll have to educate people out of racial bias and put everybody on guard against the emergence of the sort of racial animosity and racial dominance that persists to this day.
"Nearly three quarters of them would have been rejected if they had been subjected to the same standards as other white applicants."
It looks like simply having alumni or professors or donors for parents is not translating to the academic records one would need to get in on merit alone. But we would expect that having more money to throw at education would lead to somewhat better academic records. So while the argument seems a bit flawed, it also seems like one would never get rid of all economic factors. If it's possible to throw money at education to positively impact outcomes we'll always see a higher percentage of wealthy people making it by "merit".
All this makes a lot more sense when we recognize that the push to end AA came from a political movement that is all about protection of elite privilege. It is fine with the deck being stacked in its favour, which is why it opposes any efforts to counterstack, and why it is very quiet on the subject of legacy admits.
Like, they were exploited and nearly every free-person in the United States either directly or indirectly benefited from that exploitation. And after the practice was ended those who benefited, including a lot of those who benefited greatly, got to keep the spoils of that exploitation.
And you're right, ending affirmative action wasn't about meritocracy. Protecting legacy admissions serves the same purpose as ending affirmative action.
Personally, I believe that there's a way to do affirmative action without violating meritocracy. Just, all other things being roughly equal, make sure you're not picking all white dudes. Stop inventing excuses to exclude people who don't look exactly like you.
How is the principles of giving preference to a particular class or birth right any different than giving preference to race? All three fly in the face of meritocracy. Yet to not allow this means that one has to invoke government interference of private criteria.
So it seems logical that there are two reasonably argued sides. It seems that if you want to follow a more libertarian model and allow a private learning institution "the right to form elite social clubs" as you put it (surely there is more function to a university than networking!), you would likewise allow it to set other policies as they may, such as allowing preferences for race. Conversely, if meritocracy is the goal, enough to force a private university to change their criteria for admissions, then all three admission practices would be problematic.
The cherry-picked groupings don't make sense to me. Class and birth right favoritism is okay but race based favoritism is not? Why? On the surface, this smacks of protection of elitism and a class based society, which pretty much nulls all commentary from various peanut galleries arguing that ending affirmative action is about meritocracy.