Affirmative action, or the practice of giving special
consideration to minorities (LaFollette, 2007) may appear ethical for those in
consideration, but we may ask ourselves: is it really ethical? Looking into our
history, the general idea of affirmative action was ideal. American women once did
not have equal rights with men and blacks once did not share equal rights to
whites. Eventually, such discrimination were prohibited and affirmative actions
(a plausible form of compensatory justice) were taken to ensure equal qualities
of life to those involved (AAAED, 2015). Over the course of years however,
racism and other forms of discrimination has declined: which changed the way we
view affirmative actions.
The whole concept of affirmative action reminded me of
a personal situation I’ve been involved with during a mid-season tryout for my
high school varsity tennis team. During these tryouts, top rank players from
the junior varsity team had a chance to play several matches against the varsity
players. Depending on the result of these matches, players had the opportunity
to move up and even join the varsity team. As the top-rank player in the junior
varsity team, I participated in the tryouts and managed to win a match against
a varsity player. Upon winning, my opponent and the entire varsity team got
into a very emotional state and were deeply sadden by her loss. Despite my hard
efforts, the coaches eventually made the ultimate decision to not swap ranks due
to the “friendship” involved. When this decision was made, I was confused (and
very upset) since I didn’t understand the difference between my opponent’s
friendship to the varsity team and mine. What made my opponent stand out more
than me? If I were my opponent, would I be getting the same treatment? While
the probable reason may be for the two of us to avoid any negative impacts (the
opponent dealing with embarrassment and the varsity team treating me badly due
to winning), the real reason to this decision remains unclear.
Similar thoughts and questions arises in the case of
student admissions: which I personally find to be a long time and fairly
popular topic related to affirmative action. A recent article I came across is
in relation to Harvard University and their lack of admission for
Asian-Americans. Recent statistics show that more than half of the university’s
freshmen class were women, more than one in five were Asian and nearly 15% were
African-American (BBC, 2017). While it is unclear if race is involved in the
admissions process, some claims that education standards in Asian countries may
be the primary reason to lower admission rates. In a 2010 statistics from the Program
for International Assessment (PISA), eight of the top ten countries that ranked
in education were from the Asia-Pacific region (Desai, 2010). If Harvard’s
decision-making were based on this, this would be a form of
reverse-discrimination and hence unethical for the Asian-American population.
While there are many other factors involved in the admissions’ process, I
generally believe that affirmative action is unethical: as there will always be
two different sides in a situation.
References:
American Association for Access Equity and Diversity.
(2015). More History of Affirmative Action Policies From the 1960s. Retrieved from https://www.aaaed.org/aaaed/History_of_Affirmative_Action.asp
BBC. (2017). Harvard affirmative action ‘investigated
by Justice Dept’. BBC News. Retrieved
from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42070493
Desai, V. (2010). The U.S. must start learning from
Asia. CNN. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/07/school.results.us.asia.desai/index.html
LaFollette, H. (2007). The Practice of Ethics. Blackwell Publishing.
No comments:
Post a Comment