Arab News

The liberals in the United States have driven through a range of legislation embracing everything from the protection of spotted owls in commercial lumber forests to draconian anti-smoking laws and regulations aimed at promoting positive discrimination.

The latest example of this last initiative comes from Michigan University, which has been operating an entrance system that gives favorable treatment to black students over their white counterparts. In a judgment which does little to clarify the law on this matter, the US Supreme Court has just ruled that the university is wrong to apply this bias to the generality of university applicants, but right to do so in its law faculty.

The arguments in favor of positive discrimination, or affirmative action as it is also called, are that without this extra leg up, black high school students from disadvantaged backgrounds would not be able to achieve successful careers. Instead of joining middle-class America, they would be thrown back on their own deprived communities and become the next generation of problem parents, rearing a new generation of problem children. On the face of it, this rationale is alluring. Opponents, however, not least the families of white kids, who would no longer be judged simply on their academic achievements when they apply for a university place, describe positive discrimination as racism in action. And they too have a point.

Perhaps the best way to balance the competing arguments is to consider the longer-term effects of educational selective bias, based on the color of a person’s skin. For a start, anyone who benefits from special treatment in any walk of life is going to suffer from the justifiable suspicion that they have not really earned the qualifications of which they are so proud. There must also be reasonable grounds to assume that an educational establishment which discriminates on its student intake is also going to discriminate when it comes to handing out degrees.

This is very probably unfair. Black kids who have been given a chance at higher education may very well have earned their degrees. But it is entirely natural that employers may think otherwise. A further effect is that by bending the rules for the rest, those black Americans who have made it to university on their academic merits will see their achievement devalued.

There is a big difference between equal opportunity and fixing the rules in a banal attempt to enforce equal opportunity. The latter makes one section of the community more equal than others. This can only sow discord among the less equal and embarrass and undermine the achievements of its supposed beneficiaries.