John Gee: Class-Based Affirmative Action, Round 2

Penn Political Review has joined with other college political publications to form the Alliance of Collegiate Editors (ACE), hoping to generate cross-campus dialogue on political issues. The first topic we will discuss is class-based affirmative action.

Sam suggests that conservatives who oppose race-based affirmative action must necessarily oppose class-based affirmative action, ending his post with a call for conservative opinions on the subject. I don’t like to term myself conservative, but I do fit the label here. So I’ll give a go at explaining why class-based affirmative action is more appealing than race-based affirmative action, but still wrong. (From here on out, AA = Affirmative Action). Books have been written on this subject, so please forgive my incompleteness. I’d really like, for example, to address Sam’s post on the SAT, but I'm already over a thousand words here so I will abstain.

Sam begins by briefly referencing Matt Yglesias’s lament: “The presumption that you can solve any significant problem of social justice in America by fiddling with Ivy League admissions policies is dead wrong.” He inserts it more as a caveat than a substantive point, but I think it gets to the heart of the matter: current thinking about AA muddles up equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. Sam describes the liberal argument for AA using the first term:

[Liberals] can get behind class-based affirmative action because they assume that the following things are true:

1. We are very far from achieving anything like true equality of opportunity,

2. It would be a good thing if we came closer to achieving equality of opportunity, and

3. We can do so by giving a leg up in admissions to students from low-income families.

So what is opportunity, and how do we make it equal? The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (an invaluable resource) defines equality of opportunity as a social ideal, in which “the assignment of individuals to places in the social hierarchy is determined by some form of competitive process, and all members of society are eligible to compete on equal terms.” That is, there are a range of jobs, some of which are better than others, and applicants to those jobs should be assessed on their qualifications alone. Insofar as those things happen, society has “formal” equality of opportunity.

A further step can be made, to “substantive” equality of opportunity, by addressing the circumstances which produce those qualifications. The example the SEP article gives is nutrition: in a warrior society, all children should be adequately nourished or they will not have equal opportunity to become warriors. This leads from Substantive Equality of Opportunity to Equality of Fair Opportunity – a concept proposed by John Rawls – in which “any individuals who have the same native talent and the same ambition will have the same prospects of success in competitions that determine who gets positions that generate superior benefits for their occupants.” (For a much deeper look at the subject, see the SEP entry. It’s long).

Here, then, is the reason that class-based AA is more appealing than AA based on race. Being poor necessarily interferes with substantive equality of opportunity, but belonging to a certain racial group does not. The primary disadvantage suffered by blacks in the United States has been overt discrimination, in the form of preferential access to jobs for less-qualified whites. The way to end that is to stop giving preferential access to any group other than the qualified. But the poor may not be able to afford the same kinds of educational or other experiences that wealthier parents can afford for their children. Those experiences – a private high school with half the number of students per teacher, traveling sports teams, etc – will benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor, without regard to talent or ambition. Well, perhaps ambition, but perhaps not. In any case, who could oppose giving everyone a level playing field?

Note, however, how far afield Equality of Fair Opportunity has taken us from the simple suggestion that applicants be evaluated on their merits. We have arrived at a social guarantee with far-reaching implications. For example, if rich kids’ parents pay money for them to have private tutors, should the government put up the money for children whose parents can’t afford that expense? There’s an economic problem there, since that level of transfers would destroy any markets in child-related services. But let’s focus on the philosophical issues.

As I’ve said, I think the solution lies in distinguishing opportunity from outcome. Based on the above description, we can define “opportunity” as “access to resources which produce merit.” “Outcome,” on the other hand, is the result of a competitive application process. I think it’s clear that under this definition of equal opportunity, getting into Harvard is both an opportunity and an outcome. In fact, every job you have is an opportunity to succeed in later jobs, and every school you apply to competitively judges applicants in order to award a preferential status. The only pure outcome is your retirement account, and the only pure opportunity is the circumstances of your birth. So how do we separate the two?

I think we should conceive of opportunity as a category of resource, and outcome as the quality of that resource. That is, “college student” refers to a category of educational attainment, whereas “Ivy League” refers to the quality (better, worse, nerdier, jockier, more snobbish, what-have-you). Similarly, filet mignon and ramen noodles are different levels of food quality. CEO and secretary are different levels of employment quality, etc. Why is this crucial? Because a system of social insurance can guarantee that children will receive a high school education, and a postsecondary education if they want one. But it can’t guarantee everyone admission to Harvard or Penn or wherever, because those places aren’t big enough.

So what criteria have to be satisfied for someone to have been afforded “equal” or “fair” opportunity to succeed? What guarantees can the government give? I’m not sure, and nor am I sure how the government should implement them. The point is that the adjustment of inequities should take the form of guarantees, not preferential treatment in competitive situations. I side with what Sam terms the “deontological” view that if we are trying to give people equal access to competitive positions, we shouldn’t give them unequal access. We cannot burn the village to save it. But there’s plenty we can do, so let’s get to work.