Against Affirmative Action: A radical left case

Comment published on New York Times online blog, in response to opinion essay in NY Times by University of Notre Dame professor Gary Gutting, “I’m for Affirmative Action: Can you change my mind?,” December 10, 2018:

In admissions to the elite colleges (solely, reports Gutting) concerned, the presupposition is that there are more qualified applicants than available spots. There is an injustice in anyone being denied a high-quality education that they could benefit from and use to contribute more to society than otherwise. But this is not about that, since most qualified applicants rejected will go elsewhere. The idea is that colleges can redress historical and actual injustice through adopting certain preferences in admissions.  

This is not a way to achieve racial equality (it won't end mass incarceration) but a representational redress of such inequality conceived meritocratically. 



This is ideological, with benefits that are mainly symbolic. This way of thinking has displaced in the popular mind concerns for social and economic injustice onto the starting-line handicapping of runners of a race. 



Inequality is taken for granted and the fight is over who gets that slice of the pie, since there are (increasingly) scarce opportunities to do interesting and reasonably well-paying work. 

Identity politics is a neoliberal strategy aimed at visible representation of women and minorities in elite positions. It is time we move beyond it. For starters, there must be nationwide uniformity of public school per-student spending, based on federal taxation. Secondly, we must broaden access somehow to higher education and the forms of learning now largely quarantined within it.