April 2003
I hate discrimination in
all its forms. Whenever an individual is judged not in terms of her
or his performance or character, but in terms of some group to which the
person belongs, discrimination has occurred and it needs to be fought.
But it needs to be fought in an enlightened way, rather than in a biased
or ignorant way. The ignorant way of fighting discrimination is to propose
social engineering schemes where hiring is biased to favor some group,
in order to correct what is perceived as past discrimination and injustice.
So, for example, it is advocated in this sort of
“affirmative action” policy, that because there are 51% women in
the population and only 25% women in
a particular university department, the hiring should be biased
in favor of women until the 51% “goal” is reached.
That may sound reasonable,
but consider another, earlier form of such “affirmative action” that was
applied to my father in the twenties. He had just graduated from
a Hungarian high school and wanted to go to university. At that time,
95% of Hungarians were Christian, and 5% were Jews. But there were
only 85% Christian Hungarians in the University, and 15% Jews. That
is, in the current lingo, Christians were under represented, and Jews were
over represented in these privileged places. Moreover, it could be
argued with some justification that Jewish children were unjustly favored
in terms of background. Their parents tended to stress education
more, there were more books in Jewish homes, and the tradition of study
was stronger in Jewish Hungarian than in Christian Hungarian homes.
So, the Government applied social engineering, and brought in a numerus
clausus law, an early version of affirmative action, according to which
one needed higher high school marks to get into University if one was a
Jew. And my father’s marks were high enough to get in for a Christian,
but not high enough for a Jew, so he never went to University.
We may note the parallels,
in principle, between these “affirmative action” policies of the present
and of the past. The present policy favors women, while the numerus
clausus policy favored Christian Hungarians. But what an enlightened
approach to discrimination recognizes is that both forms of so called “affirmative
action” are wrong. So too are forms of discrimination that favor
certain races in hiring wrong. Martin Luther King recognized this,
I think, when he called for a “color blind” society. By this he did not
mean that people would no longer be able to perceive race differences,
but only that, as he put it, a person would be judged not by the color
of his skin but by his character.
Now there is a form of affirmative
action that does genuinely not discriminate. In situations where
there is evidence of past and present discrimination, for example, university
hiring procedures which, in fact, consider only male and/or white candidates,
then not only does that discriminatory policy have to be fought, but it
must be ensured that all qualified candidates are informed of the position,
and that all qualified candidates are judged in terms of their merit in
the competition for the position. That sort of “opening” of “closed”
doors is an important way of fighting discrimination. And, as someone
who has felt discrimination as a Jew in Nazi Hungary, a bourgeois in Communist
Hungary, and as a Refugee or Bloody Refo in Democratic Australia, I am
for the opening of all such closed doors. And I also recognize that sometimes
some good detective work will need to be done to uncover some of these
discriminatory practices, which have often been carried on without being
explicitly stated.
But if you want to fight
discrimination, there is one simple rule: do not discriminate. The
social engineering policy that includes quotas or so called “hiring goals”
is immoral and unfair, because it is discriminatory. The policy,
in other words, is unprincipled. It was his consistent principles
that gave Martin Luther King the high moral ground in his fight to eliminate
racial discrimination. Social engineering which tries to correct
past injustices by present discriminatory policies is unfair and unprincipled,
and therefore odious.
In addition, however, this
sort of social engineering is also ultimately impracticable. Take,
for instance, the claims of persons of so called “mixed race”, or partial
descent, to be included in designated or “affirmed” hiring groups.
How will the line be drawn in deciding eligibility among applicants who
are not “full blooded” members of a visible minority and or a Native Canadian
category? Will we have to contrive South African style formulae to classify
people so as to avoid minute examination of each individual’s parentage
and descent? It may seem that this would be unnecessary under the
employment equity procedures, but one can readily imagine that in a competitive
job situation issues of this kind would arise. These decisions become arbitrary,
and like all arbitrary decisions, lead to injustice.
In fact, let us reflect on
the nature of the injustice and against whom it is perpetrated. The
main victims are not the whole body of the proverbial power group, white
able bodied males, but the sub group of the current generation of white
able bodied males in their twenties. The goals of employment equity
will mean that individuals in this particular cohort will have to suffer
significantly higher unemployment rates than people in designated groups
or those older people in non designated groups who already have
jobs. In other words, this particular cohort is being forced to make
all the sacrifices necessary to achieve “employment equity”. Is that
equitable?
It is for these moral as
well as practical reasons that I oppose the current employment equity policies
and those affirmative action policies that, in fact, involve discrimination.
Let us strive, instead, for a fairsystem of evaluation, where,
as Martin Luther King said, we judge only individuals in terms of merit
and performance, and not according to their group identity. The enlightened
fight against discrimination must eliminate it so that our social structures
are genuinely just.
John Furedy, Professor
of Psychology, is a member and former president of SAFS.
Published as Guest Essay
in SAVE (Students Advocating Valid Education) Newsletter, winter, 1998;
posted March 11, 1998 as a Requested Article in
The Canadian Conservative Forum, url: www.conservativeforum.org.
Help us maintain freedom in teaching, research and scholarship by joining SAFS or making a donation.
