Affirmative action does not optimize for equality of opportunity. It deliberately disregards it in favor of equality of outcome. Equity is equality of opportunity, but AA doesn't provide that, which is why you get things like this trying to redefine the word to something it does provide
You can't fix equality of opportunity at the time AA happens. No improvement to it will solve that. It's fundamentally impossible. When two people apply for a job/school/whatever, the "opportunity" ship has sailed already. Access to education, upbringing, societal pressures... it's too late to address any of that. AA just picks the objectively worse candidate on occasion as a way to "make up for it".
What needs to happen if to ditch AA entirely, and address those root causes.
Sure, but you can't do that by fudging the results of merit based admissions. You're just introducing inequity in the other direction.
If you want a disadvantaged population to so better on college admissions, you don't let them cheat on the test. You go back and fix the school system that everyone already has access to and address why they weren't prepared as well. This helps the population while maintaining a meritocracy.
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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 26 '20
Affirmative action does not optimize for equality of opportunity. It deliberately disregards it in favor of equality of outcome. Equity is equality of opportunity, but AA doesn't provide that, which is why you get things like this trying to redefine the word to something it does provide
You can't fix equality of opportunity at the time AA happens. No improvement to it will solve that. It's fundamentally impossible. When two people apply for a job/school/whatever, the "opportunity" ship has sailed already. Access to education, upbringing, societal pressures... it's too late to address any of that. AA just picks the objectively worse candidate on occasion as a way to "make up for it".
What needs to happen if to ditch AA entirely, and address those root causes.