[fennecfoxen]

> How is "discriminating against a group" different from "balancing its overwhelming predominance in a particular field"?

Since you ask, I'll repeat myself. Suppose you have lots of people applying for 100 slots in the university. Affirmative action at a US university designed to give you a quota of, say, 10% minorities could, in the worst case, crowd out qualified persons #91-100. "Jewish questions" deployed against highly qualified Jews in a Jewish-dominated field in Lithuania could have easily excluded most qualified persons in the range #1-100.

I really don't like affirmative action either, but it differs substantially in intent, technique, and impact. Considering them morally equivalent slights against the ideals of fairness and merit is a very narrow, black-and-white world view - and without abandoning the ideal of justice, I think it's important to see that there are many shades grays in this world, and some are much much darker than others.

[_yosefk]

I wasn't arguing with your analysis of the differences between asking different people different questions and asking everyone the same questions but then holding different people to different standards. I was only arguing that "discriminating against a group", taken literally, is equivalent to "balancing its overwhelming predominance in a particular field", taken literally. That is, I was arguing with that sentence, without assuming that these two names for what I claim are the same general thing are also names for two different discrimination methods (which are two different specific things as you pointed out.)

Regarding "intent, technique and impact" - I agree on technique and impact, intent is a thornier issue; certainly nobody ever instituted discrimination for reasons they proclaimed evil, it's always done in the name of "righting wrongs," and then real intent as opposed to proclaimed intent is very hard to establish. From my own point of view, at the gut level, some discriminators seem to act much more maliciously than others, but I'm not sure there's always a reasonable argument to support my gut feeling.

[hackuser]

> a quota of, say, 10% minorities could, in the worst case, crowd out qualified persons #91-100

You're assuming #91-100 are better candidates than the minority candidates. I think the resasoning behind affirmative action is that #91-100 are worse students who just had access to far better resources and thus produced better quantitive results. I'd rather hire the minority candidates.

[matt-attack]

I'm sure your argument makes #95 feel much better.

[to3m]

How would they know they were #95?

It's not clear why failed applicants would automatically leap to the theory that they didn't get in because of affirmative action, rather than just assuming they weren't good enough. Competition for good academic institutions is generally stiff enough that this is the most likely reason anyway.

[13thLetter]

"It's not clear why failed applicants would automatically leap to the theory that they didn't get in because of affirmative action, rather than just assuming they weren't good enough."

Why wouldn't they? People generally look for an explanation of bad events that doesn't put the blame on themselves. Even better, if it defines a specific culprit and paints them as a villain. "I didn't get into X because they discriminated against me, those racist bastards" is therefore a very appealing narrative.

[fennecfoxen]

It's not designed to make #95 feel better. It's designed to make you feel bad about equating #95 to a guy who probably would have gotten shipped off to Siberia with all his family and many of his friends if Stalin had lived a few more years than he ended up doing.

[analyst74]

What happens to minorities if they exceeded their "quota"? Do you put them back to their place?