Opinion | Why US universities’ affirmative action policies are unfair to Asian Americans
- Claiming there are structural barriers and trying to rectify them through affirmative action assumes that, in the absence of such barriers, ability would be evenly distributed across groups
- Moreover, the policy seeks to redress an injustice to one group by penalising another
What this means is that if an applicant to the university is a member of a certain group that is demographically under-represented, he or she will be preferred for admission relative to an applicant whose academic credentials are, by any measure, superior. So if Peter scores 100 and Paul scores 70, Paul will nevertheless be admitted instead of Peter if he belongs to a designated “protected” group.
One of the primary justifications for this practice boils down to the proposition that if too few members of a given ethnic or cultural group gain admission to that university, there must be some underlying structural barriers set up against them. Hence, affirmative action claims to operate to rectify that putative injustice.
There is, however, a scant logical basis for that argument. First, it rests on the unproven assumption that ability and predisposition for a given pursuit, be it academic, sporting or any other calling, is evenly distributed among all groups, such that any underrepresentation is both artificial and undesirable.
Second, it seeks to redress an injustice to a group by way of a injustice to an individual. That is unfair and anti-meritocratic, inconsistent as it is with the long-standing American ideals of industry and self-reliance.
