Retraction/Discussion of Affirmative Action
I must retract my post from June 30, 2023, in which I ascribed to Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson words which she did not use. They were written by another person. I apologize to my readers and to Justice Jackson.
When Affirmative Action arose in the 1960s it meant something other than racial preferences. It came about from institutions which adopted written policies of non-discrimination. Attorneys from the civil rights division of the US Justice Department advised these businesses and schools that having a policy was insufficient. Rather, it was necessary to act affirmatively, to reach out to under-represented groups where they lived, through billboards, advertising, community organizers and churches, to hold meetings in under-represented neighborhoods and actively recruit from those neighborhoods and schools. The objective was not to hire or admit specific numbers of under-represented groups, but to expand the talent pool.
Expanding the Talent Pool
Expanding the talent pool is a goal to which no educator nor businessperson can register sane objection. I’ve led and owned a number of businesses. I tell my clients that diversity of experience set is important, but diversity of skin color has no value. I do not know a single business owner who wants to limit his talent pool for hiring; it’s a sure way to lose out to his competition. The same applies to institutions of higher learning.
I ran one business at a time when my health took a serious blow, and I had to withdraw from the work. Until then, I had four subordinates (direct reports): a Pakistani woman, American-Born and Muslim; a Non-Resident Indian woman with a master’s degree in library science, about as close as one can come to a degree in research; a white woman who was originally from Australia and was married to a black Bahamian; and a black woman in Mississippi whom I had encountered when she asked me for help in buying a clothing business. The Australian married to a black man had difficulty with her position, complaining that I was prejudiced against her because her husband was black. I could not dissuade her from her delusion, and she had to go.
Every time we permit a group of intolerant racists to highjack the meanings of words, we are poorer for it.
Affirmative Action, to me meant casting the employment net as wide as possible. I don’t know when the term was highjacked to mean racial preferences, nor by whom. I have my suspicions; they focus on people who are bastions of intolerance and who seek to impose their views on everyone else.
Well said! It's sort of the same with "diversity" -- now it just means how you look on the outside (or maybe who you screw) and ignores diversity of thought completely. (The important kind!)
Interesting. Thank you for clearing up the origins.