Justice O'Connor, Are You Listening?

Margaret L. Snyder

One down, twenty-four to go. Years, that is, until Sandra Day O’Connor says we won’t need affirmative action any more. This was what she wrote in the majority opinion one year ago in the University of Michigan Law School case. What did she base that judgment on? It must have been a blind faith that affirmative action works. It certainly wasn’t any empirical knowledge of the effects of affirmative action.

Human beings will do just about as much as we need to to get whatever it is we need or want. You could argue that to do more would be foolish or wasteful. So, if we have institutionalized a system of different standards for different people, those who have to meet the higher standards will work harder than those who have to meet only the lower standards, and they will achieve more.

This stands to reason, but we don’t have to take it on reason alone because Thomas Sowell has written "Affirmative Action Around the World", an account of the actual effects of policies of racial preference in many countries. He discusses the Southeast Asian nation of Malaysia, populated by a Malay majority and a Chinese minority. Due to cultural and historical differences he describes at length, the Chinese are much more prosperous than the Malay majority. To address the discrepancy the Malays instituted policies of affirmative action to benefit themselves.

Singapore, which used to be part of Malaysia, is its mirror image in ethnic make-up, with a Chinese majority and a Malay minority. Again, the Chinese are more prosperous. There is no affirmative action for the Malays in Singapore, but since 1965, when Singapore and Malaysia separated, the Malays of Singapore have improved their lot far more than their kindred in Malaysia, contrary to what we would expect if preferential policies indeed worked.

In the U.S., if we compare levels of education and income among blacks since 1964 (the year of the Civil Rights Act), to today’s levels, we see great improvement. However, if we plot a graph starting in the year 1940 instead of 1964, we will see a continuous upward trend (excepting a slight leveling-off n the later 1960s and early 70s). This suggests that the gains of recent decades are the continuation of trends begun over sixty years ago rather than the results of affirmative action. (In which case, many blacks have been robbed of the respect they would have received absent affirmative action.)

Affirmative action inevitably causes friction between groups. Sowell looks at its consequences in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Nigeria and the United States. The results have often been tragic. Sri Lanka, for example, went from being a peaceful, tolerant society to one where, after affirmative action took effect, being the wrong ethnicity could get you burned alive.

Further, in the United States and in the other countries Sowell examines in his book, the supposed beneficiaries of affirmative action are chiefly those members of the favored group who were already rising or risen. For example, it is primarikly middle class blacks who benefit from affirmative action in university admissions. Like the blacks trapped in the inner cities of America, the vast majority of the preferred groups in India, Nigeria and elsewhere are no better off for affirmative action.

Last, what of the “temporary” nature of affirmative action? Affirmative action was established in India under British rule a century ago and institutionalized under its 1948 constitution, with the proviso that such preferences were to expire after 20 years. They are still there, and much expanded. (As they have been expanded here;originally only for blacks, they now cover a majority of citizens.)

In Malaysia the New Economic Policy was instituted in 1969 for the purpose of achieving equity between the Malay majority and the Chinese minority. It was set to expire in 20 years, but is still in place; it is not politically feasible to remove it. Can you imagine Jesse Jackson or Julian Bond agreeing that we no longer need affirmative action? How could they? They are demagogues who will be out of business the day racial politics ends.

In this and several other books, Thomas Sowell explains circumstances of geography and history that have led to cultural differences between peoples. Inequalities between groups are and have been the norm everywhere. Just think of the disproportionate numbers of Italian barbers, German brewers, Indian engineers and black entertainers. Sowell writes, “Any ‘temporary’ policy whose duration is defined by the goal of achieving something that has never been achieved before, anywhere in the world, would more fittingly be characterized as eternal.”

I hope he sent Sandra Day O’Connor a copy of "Affirmative Action Around the World".

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Margaret L. Snyder and her husband are the parents of three sons. She writes mostly about racial justice, political philsophy, and education and hers is the voice of Joan Q. Public. She has a lifelong love of the Spanish language and is thrilled to be able to teach it at Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA.

memls01@moravian.edu