Affirmative action aims not just to repair the historical injustices that are sexism, slavery, and racism (and, to some extent, colonialism) but also aims to increase opportunities—such as educational opportunities, equal employment opportunities, etc.—for underrepresented groups that continue to face the adverse effects of such historical injustices. Recently, however, the United States Supreme Court ruled against race-conscious admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Based on the belief that affirmative action violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, this ruling sets a precedent against affirmative action in social institutions and private businesses.
Although the Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action is recent, the antagonism affirmative action faces can be traced to the twentieth century. In his influential paper from 1998, “The Case Against Affirmative Action,” Louis Pojman argues that when we consider that the statement “two wrongs does not make a right” is a good moral assumption and preferential treatment is wrong, any justification that the proponents of affirmative action might hold becomes null. But what did the people opposed to affirmative action get wrong about affirmative action?
The arguments of the opponents of affirmative action are explicitly dedicated to undermining the position that under the condition of a past injustice that puts a person, S, in an underrepresented group, we ought to treat S with more leniency than we would treat a person, P, who does not satisfy the condition of being affected by past injustices when they apply to the same job or school for admission. Since sexism, slavery, and racism are what belong to this class of historical injustices, antagonists of affirmative action argue that the preferential treatment that (white) women, Black people, people of color, and indigenous people get is detrimental to white males—especially white males that are hardworking and who in no way participated in the historical injustices the consequences of which they have been asked to bear. Thus, opponents of affirmative action argue that it is both racist and sexist since it applies primarily to the detriment of white males and, thus, is bad for propagating a just society. The exemption of white males from benefiting directly from affirmative action is predicated on two points: (1) a historical fact and (2) white males are presumed to be the better off in the United States (and most societies). But most important of the two points is the historical fact: past white males perpetuated these historical injustices (to be clear, I do not mean past white males are the only perpetrators of these historical injustices; most African societies, for instance, are misogynistic—even up to the present).
To prove their point that affirmative action is wrong, opponents of affirmative action argue that we must differentiate between promoting equal opportunity in a polity from preferential treatment that requires an individual or institution to discriminate against the people presumed to be better off in a society in favor of underrepresented groups suffering from historical injustices. Those opposed to affirmative action accept that the former is needed for a just society. But is equal opportunity enough when it has been established—as a matter of historical record—that the playing ground has an unjust foundation? If justice is a virtue that cannot be overridden in a society that presumes that justice is needed to lead flourishing lives, then, as Christine Sypnowich argues, merely relying on providing citizens with the chance to live a flourishing life cannot be enough. Our social organization—and even our distribution of resources in such social organization—ought to center around fairness by taking into account that the outcomes ought to be equal, especially given that certain (historical) injustices have occurred. As a society that upholds justice as a virtue, we should focus on what opportunity achieves, not on opportunity as such.
Affirmative action might not be the best way to achieve a just (or equal) society or economic sufficiency for underrepresented groups. Nevertheless, the reasons given by opponents of affirmative action do not state clearly how affirmative action fails to aid in building a more just society. The arguments against affirmative action—including those of the U.S. Supreme Court justices who ruled against affirmative action—are based on fallacies and misinterpretation of the authentic goals of affirmative action. I won’t offer a response that looks into each argument in toto. Instead, what I would offer is a general response to the basic assumptions of those who oppose affirmative action.
First, the anti-affirmative action group misses the point when they argue that affirmative action is racist and sexist. Racism is rooted in discrimination based on the belief that a particular group or individual is inferior to another group or individual. Affirmative action that works against white males are not rooted in a sense of superiority, inferiority, or dominance. Instead, it is an attempt to build a more just society, given certain injustices that occurred in the past. Perhaps, from another vantage point of view, a policy that works against white males is somewhat racist. But that would mean we need to do away with our conceptions of what racism is, and we need to offer another socio-ontological theory on how to see racism and what counts as racism. If racism is rooted in a sense of racial superiority and inferiority, then preferential treatment on the grounds of building a more just society—which is what affirmative action does—would fail to qualify as racism. Given this point, even the claim that affirmative action is (reverse) racism does not sit on a justified ground.
Most people opposed to affirmative action predicate their argument on the idea that it is, by implication, saying that “two wrongs make a right,” and this is reverse racism. The moral theory on which this claim rests is nebulous. Since what separates political philosophy from political science is its normative commitments—against political science’s descriptive project—anti-affirmative action arguments could enjoy more validity if they openly embrace a moral theory. If we must consider political philosophy—due to its normative commitments—as political ethics, then the goal of our ethical assumptions must be clear. For instance, on utilitarian grounds, one can assume that two wrong actions could be better than a right action if the consequential good of the one right action is lower than the two wrongs.
Opponents of affirmative action also fail to recognize one of the most important reasons for affirmative action: representation. One of the major arguments in favor of affirmative action is that a lack of representation in social institutions runs counter to the construction of a just society, and this harms marginalized people. Opponents would argue that representation does not override competence. But this would mean neglecting the veracity of standpoint epistemology, a thesis with empirical commitments: Marginalized people are more situated to represent and proclaim their experiences. Thus, marginalized people must have access to the resources—such as good education, good jobs, housing, etc.—that would make them offer profound suggestions while speaking in elite spaces, a space that does not only anchor social organization but is also responsible for making and maintaining a just society.
Lastly, some antagonists of affirmative action are not opposed to scientific racism: they argue that if we compare average IQ scores, SAT scores, and so forth, we will have evidence that shows that group differences do exist, and thus affirmative action is unjustified. So, we should accept that white males are significantly superior to others. Since the resources we have or that are available to us affect and dictate how we live and what we do, one has good reason to disagree with this sort of racial assumption in the arguments against affirmative action. This way of thinking has been adequately classified as unwarranted scientific racism. The opponents of affirmative action that make this sort of argument miss the point: limited resources—e.g., poor education—are responsible for poor performance. Proponents of affirmative action want to argue that the racial differences that we might be seeing in, for instance, intelligence, are due to the limited resources that historical injustices have created. Given these historical injustices, and as a moral demand, we need to bridge that gap by making, for instance, the admission criteria for marginalized people more lenient than for white males.
Perhaps one could ask: What is the moral basis of affirmative action if it requires excluding another group of people? Consider a case: the case of group A and group B in event C. Group A and B’s ancestors were heading towards a land naturally enriched with gold. Both traveled through different routes. Both groups have ten more miles to go. During this journey, A’s ancestors learned that B’s ancestors were on a similar journey on a route very close to the route they are traveling. Instead of forming a coalition across the different groups on how to get to the land of gold together, A’s ancestors exploited B’s ancestors by making the ancestors of B carry them on their shoulders during the first five of the remaining ten miles both groups need to travel to get to the land. Due to this exploitation, A’s ancestors were able to reach the land of gold before B’s. This exploitation is what made group A better-off economically than group B, or at least, made group B not develop at the same pace as group A. Arguably, as a matter of moral obligation (in terms of economic fairness), group A (the present-living ones) has a duty to repair the past injustice.
This case is an anecdote: I want to suggest that its intertemporal situation represents historical injustices and current racial and gender inequalities.
A critic could say that the crux of my example rests on if one agrees that group A‘s ancestors actions were immoral. It seems that A and B were competing for those resources. Thus, there will naturally be winners and losers. Why is this inevitability reason for injustice? Couldn’t B have done the exact same, but didn’t think of it, and thus lost a competitive edge? I think this objection misses the point of this case: the word “competition” cannot replace “exploitation” even though they are both parts of human competitive nature. As Bernard Boxill argues, “an injustice has occurred when someone makes it impossible for others to pursue a legitimate goal, even if these others never actually attempt to achieve that goal.”
The opponents of affirmative action could respond that this case bears on performing another sort of injustice on white males. But it has always been the case in most ethical theories that we must allow a little bit of injustice for us to repair a past wrongdoing to build a more just and equal society.
Idowu Odeyemi
Ìdòwú Ọdẹ́yẹmí (anglicized spelling: Idowu Odeyemi) is a philosophy Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado Boulder. His research centers on applied epistemology, moral, social, and political philosophy. He is an alumnus of the Open Student Workshop at the University of Oxford.
