To the Editor:
In his reply in the July issue to my letter commenting on his article, “‘Affirmative Action’: A Worldwide Disaster” [December 1989], Thomas Sowell begins with a misleading definition. American affirmative action has been conceived, developed, and implemented, not in terms of group rights but as an extension of the civil rights of individuals. Accordingly, in my doctoral thesis (Harvard University, 1989) and in my forthcoming book (Oxford University Press), based on an intercountry study of preferential policies, I have defined the objective of affirmative action as “minimizing the handicaps suffered on account of ethnicity and gender.” This definition clearly excludes all sexism and racism. In contrast, Mr. Sowell’s definition of affirmative action as “government apportionment of coveted positions to supersede the competition of the marketplace or of academia” covers virtually every variety of sexism and racism, including apartheid, and contradicts affirmative action as set out in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1984, in various American Supreme Court rulings, and in most of the scholarly literature on the subject.
In a racist society, “the competition of the marketplace” will reflect and sustain racism, as demonstrated, from different perspectives, by Kenneth Arrow, Edna Bonacich, William Darity, Walter Williams, Stanley Lieberson, T. C. Schelling, and Alan Wertheimer. In many societies it is neither laws nor explicit government policies that uphold racism but the market in the context of the prejudice of some and the informed self-interest of others who interact in it. Does Mr. Sowell dispute this?
Mr. Sowell has failed to meet any of my arguments. What he has attempted to do is to attack his own misperceptions of some of them. Let me go point by point.
1. I have clearly stated that statistical parity may be neither feasible nor equitable and that it is gross intergroup imbalances which might suggest the probability of significant group-based disabilities and the possibility of discrimination. Does Mr. Sowell disagree?
2. While I have not expressed an opinion on the principle of reparation, I have pointed out that the case for affirmative action does not rest on it. Is Mr. Sowell against all reparation, or only reparation to blacks?
3. I have stated that major interethnic imbalances in one generation may lead to significant inequality in life chances in the next generation as shown by James F. Fishkin, Glenn Loury, and many others. In consequence, even if there was initially no hostility or prejudice, it would be rational to use ethnicity as a screening device, and these circumstances may lead to prejudice and discrimination. Does Mr. Sowell disagree?
4. If there is one theme that emerges from Mr. Sowell’s article (and from his other publications on the subject), it is his assertion that the primary cause of the poor performance of American blacks is not discrimination or any other exogenous factor but their own inadequacy. Does Mr. Sowell dispute this?
Since affirmative action is based on individual rights, the “handicaps suffered on account of ethnicity” sought to be overcome would exclude those caused by cultural traits internal to the individual but would include environmental handicaps on account of cultural traits external to the individual but internal to the ethnic group of which that individual is a member. Does Mr. Sowell oppose such affirmative action?
5. The ill-effects of programs to preserve racial hierarchies strengthen rather than weaken the case for programs to undermine racial hierarchies. Mr. Sowell’s confusion arises from his failure to distinguish between diametrically opposite policies caught up within his curious definition of affirmative action.
6. Substantial improvements in the socioeconomic status of U.S. blacks since the mid-50’s as well as affirmative-action programs are clearly linked to the activities of the civil-rights movement which peaked in the 60’s. There are other explanations for the improvements in the socioeconomic status of blacks in the period before Brown (1954).
7. Mr. Sowell’s contention that racial incidents are most prevalent in liberal and radical institutions is in keeping with the findings of many social scientists that disturbing ethnicity-based hierarchies and reducing interethnic disparity (which some of these institutions attempt to do) create friction. This phenomenon is not peculiar to the U.S., but is common to the experience of many countries. For example, D.I. Sheth, a distinguished Indian social scientist, has demonstrated that it is significant disturbance of the status quo through improvement in the rate of utilization of reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Maharashtra and Gujarat that has led to elite resentment and agitation against affirmative action in those states, and that the intensity of protests is positively correlated to success in implementation. Mr. Sheth concludes:
Any honest and effective measure to implement a transformative social policy—be it the removal of untouchability, land reforms, or reservations—is bound to generate conflicts. . . . There is abundant empirical evidence to show that wherever Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have improved their socioeconomic position by availing [themselves of] benefits from special schemes, they have become targets of atrocities.
Racially motivated incidents involving blacks are, in any case, less likely in institutions which are virtually segregated, or in which the proportion of blacks is minimal and stagnant or declining—as in the case of most colleges and universities which are not “liberal and radical.” The surest way to avoid incidents involving an ethnic group in an institution is to exclude these groups from that institution. Is this what Mr. Sowell advocates?
8. The character of the reaction to the mobility of an ethnic group is determined by the nature of the prejudice against it. It is the emancipation of those groups against which there is deep-seated prejudice that provokes the most hostile reaction. That the modest mobility of blacks in the U.S. and of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in India should encounter greater opposition than the more substantial mobility of certain other ethnic minorities should surprise no one. The resentment is not confined to improvement on account of affirmative action, but may extend to every advancement of the oppressed groups. Those familiar with the history of oppressed groups such as blacks in the U.S. and Harijans and Tribals in India are aware that the suppression of their mobility was most severe long before the advent of affirmative action.
9. Mr. Sowell has, clearly, no understanding of the issues involved in the conflict in Sri Lanka. For those interested in the subject, there are excellent studies by several scholars, including S. J. Tambiah.
Any dispassionate scholar can discover some of the body of hard evidence available, some more favorable and some less favorable to affirmative action, and excellent analyses of such evidence in the works of many scholars (e.g., Marc Galanter, J. Leonard, Myron Weiner, and William J. Wilson). All that is evident in Mr. Sowell’s article and reply is his passionate hostility to affirmative action.
Devanesan Nesiah
Colombo, Sri Lanka
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Thomas Sowell writes:
If Devanesan Nesiah had any real arguments, then it might be worthwhile to have yet another round of debate with him. But sweeping assertions, arbitrary definitions, or a list of people whose studies (with specifics omitted) supposedly support his conclusion are simply not serious arguments.