Libertarian perspectives on affirmative action

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Libertarian perspectives on affirmative action consistently coincide with the way that libertarians view the state as a coercive power. Many libertarians believe that the state should not be used as an instrument of power in enforcing what they call positive discrimination. [1]

Contents

Overview

One point of view considers libertarianism as being compatible with affirmative action. Associate professor of political science Andrew Valls from Oregon State University writes in a paper titled "The Libertarian Case for Affirmative Action" that "libertarianism underwrites calls for black reparations, and that affirmative action policies can be seen as a partial payment on reparations that are owed African Americans", in what Valls references as "the principle of justice in rectification", a term originally created by Robert Nozick in his book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia. [2] This view contradicts the mainstream view of many libertarian think tanks. [3]

A point of view that coincides with mainstream views that many libertarians share is "the use of racial classifications in public policies, including in affirmative action policy, pose[s] a great threat to individual liberties." [4] Many libertarians claim that restrictions placed on private sectors violate certain individual rights and liberties. Libertarians often oppose intervention, especially by governments, of any kind in the private sector. [5]

David Bernstein, a Foundation Professor at George Mason University, argues that anti-discrimination law should at the very least be scrutinized, a main reason being that "...Antidiscrimination laws are unlikely to provide much protection to a minority group when the majority of the voting population is hostile to that group." [6] Furthermore, according to Bernstein, even with anti-discrimination laws in place, the majority population is no more inclined to change previously held perceptions of the minority population, eliciting little to no change. [7]

Another main reason why libertarians tend to oppose affirmative action is due to the macroeconomics issues the policy presents. Llewellyn Rockwell, a libertarian author and editor, references Steven Yates' book, "Civil Wrongs: What Went Wrong With Affirmative Action" [8] as an example as to why affirmative action is a policy that libertarians tend to not support. Additionally, Rockwell argues that anti-discrimination laws such as affirmative action is "an inefficient use of labor and intellectual resources." Rockwell reasons that individuals should be hired or accepted to a university based on merit rather than having to be subjected to affirmative action laws. Because affirmative action laws tend to require a certain quota of majority versus minority individuals being hired or accepted, Rockwell argues that it is possible for an individual belonging to a majority would be rejected in favor of another individual belonging to a minority.

Marie Gryphon argues that affirmative action can cause more harm to minority groups than good. "A phenomenon called the "ratchet effect" means that preferences at a handful of top schools, including state flagship institutions, can worsen racial disparities in academic preparation at all other American colleges and universities, including those that do not use admissions preferences." [9] Due to this "ratchet effect", Gryphon argues that the disparity between the majority and minority populations are only worsened due to affirmative action policies. Often, advocates of affirmative action argue that "college has helped many minority students achieve middle-class lives" [10] and that "without preferences colleges would become "re-segregated," depriving American students of the educational benefits of a diverse student body." [11] [12] Gryphon also argues that preferences, especially racial, harms "students of all races by impeding learning and generating unnecessary suspicion and distrust between groups."

Related Research Articles

Affirmative action, also known as positive action or positive discrimination, involves sets of policies and practices within a government or organization seeking to benefit particular groups that were historically discriminated against in areas in which such groups are underrepresented, mistreated or suffer from lack of public support—such as education and employment. Historically and internationally, support for affirmative action has sought to achieve goals such as bridging inequalities in employment and pay, increasing access to education, promoting diversity, and redressing wrongs, harms, or hindrances.

Racial quotas in employment and education are numerical requirements for hiring, promoting, admitting and/or graduating members of a particular racial group. Racial quotas are often established as means of diminishing racial discrimination, addressing under-representation and evident racism against those racial groups or, the opposite, against the disadvantaged majority group. Conversely, quotas have also been used historically to promote discrimination against minority groups by limiting access to influential institutions in employment and education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cato Institute</span> American libertarian think tank

The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries. Cato was established to focus on public advocacy, media exposure and societal influence.

Reverse discrimination is a term used to describe discrimination against members of a dominant or majority group, in favor of members of a minority or historically disadvantaged group.

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978), was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that involved a dispute of whether preferential treatment for minorities could reduce educational opportunities for whites without violating the Constitution. It upheld affirmative action, allowing race to be one of several factors in college admission policy. However, the court ruled that specific racial quotas, such as the 16 out of 100 seats set aside for minority students by the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine, were impermissible.

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Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003), was a landmark case of the Supreme Court of the United States concerning affirmative action in student admissions. The Court held that a student admissions process that favors "underrepresented minority groups" did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause so long as it took into account other factors evaluated on an individual basis for every applicant. The decision largely upheld the Court's decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), which allowed race to be a consideration in admissions policy but held racial quotas to be unconstitutional. In Gratz v. Bollinger (2003), a separate case decided on the same day as Grutter, the Court struck down a points-based admissions system that awarded an automatic bonus to the admissions scores of minority applicants.

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Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study is a 2004 nonfiction work by economist Thomas Sowell.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Bernstein (law professor)</span> American academic (born 1967)

David E. Bernstein is a law professor at the George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia, where he has taught since 1995. His primary areas of scholarly research are constitutional history and the admissibility of expert testimony. Bernstein is a contributor to the legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy. Bernstein is a graduate of the Yale Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law, Economics and Public Policy, a Claude Lambe Fellow of the Institute for Humane Studies, and a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal. He received his undergraduate degree from Brandeis University.

Right-libertarianism, also known as libertarian capitalism, right-wing libertarianism, or colloquially as libright, is a libertarian political philosophy that supports capitalist property rights and defends market distribution of natural resources and private property. The term right-libertarianism is used to distinguish this class of views on the nature of property and capital from left-libertarianism, a type of libertarianism that combines self-ownership with an egalitarian approach to natural resources. In contrast to socialist libertarianism, right-libertarianism supports free-market capitalism. Like most forms of libertarianism, it supports civil liberties, especially natural law, negative rights, the non-aggression principle, and a major reversal of the modern welfare state.

Reverse racism, sometimes referred to as reverse discrimination, is the concept that affirmative action and similar color-conscious programs for redressing racial inequality are forms of anti-white racism. The concept is often associated with conservative social movements and reflects a belief that social and economic gains by black people and other people of color cause disadvantages for white people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Affirmative action in the United States</span>

In the United States, affirmative action consists of government-mandated, government-approved, and voluntary private programs granting special consideration to groups considered or classified as historically excluded, specifically racial minorities and women. These programs tend to focus on access to education and employment in order to redress the disadvantages associated with past and present discrimination. Another goal of affirmative action policies is to ensure that public institutions, such as universities, hospitals, and police forces, are more representative of the populations they serve.

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Schuette v. BAMN, 572 U.S. 291 (2014), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States concerning affirmative action and race- and sex-based discrimination in public university admissions. In a 6-2 decision, the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause does not prevent states from enacting bans on affirmative action in education.

References

  1. ↑ Southwood, Ben (26 June 2013). "Good and bad objections to positive discrimination". Adam Smith Institute. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  2. ↑ Valls, Andrew (January 1999). "The Libertarian Case for Affirmative Action". Social Theory and Practice. 25 (2): 299–323. doi:10.5840/soctheorpract199925218 . Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  3. ↑ Becker, Gary; Sowell, Thomas; Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. (1982). Discrimination, Affirmative Action, and Equal Opportunity. The Fraser Institute. p. 156. ISBN   0-88975-039-4.
  4. ↑ Taylor, Bron Raymond. "Affirmative Action at Work: Law, Politics, and Ethics" University of Pittsburgh, 1991. pp. 188–190. Retrieved December 05, 2016.
  5. ↑ "2016 Platform". Libertarian Party. May 2016. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
  6. ↑ Bernstein, David. "Context Matters: A Better Libertarian Approach to Antidiscrimination Law." Cato Institute, 2010. Retrieved December 05, 2016.
  7. ↑ Bernstein, David. "Context Matters: A Better Libertarian Approach to Antidiscrimination Law." Cato Institute, 2010. Retrieved December 05, 2016.
  8. ↑ Yates, Steven. "Civil Wrongs: What Went Wrong With Affirmative Action." ICS Press, 1995.
  9. ↑ Gryphon, Marie. "The Affirmative Action Myth." Cato Institute, 2005.
  10. ↑ Gryphon, Marie. "The Affirmative Action Myth." Cato Institute, 2005.
  11. ↑ Gryphon, Marie. "The Affirmative Action Myth." Cato Institute, 2005.
  12. ↑ Sowell, Thomas. "Affirmative Action around the World: An Empirical Study." New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. p. 159.

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