BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Affirmative action creates bad workplaces for all minorities

Affirmative action creates a negative workplaces for all minorities whose group receives affirmative action support. The existence of affirmative action creates a de-facto assumption that anyone of that particular minority must have gotten where they are not on their own merit, but simply because they are that particular minority. This causes people to resent the minority group for getting for “free” what people feel they had to work hard for. This furthers the perception of the minority as being inferior, and removes their capacity to be treated as an equal in the workplace and prove themselves. This assumption is not only harmful to those minorities who did receive assistance from affirmative action, but also anyone of that minority group regardless of if they were hired using affirmative action because there is simply an assumption that they are less qualified and there because of the policy because the policy exists. Therefore, affirmative action creates an assumption that minorities in the workplace are less qualified and inherently inferior to the other workers due to the affirmative action policy causing resentment and deepening inequality, not helping eradicate it.
Affirmative action perpetuates prejudice

Affirmative action causes prejudice against minorities in society. The existence of affirmative action creates a de-facto assumption that anyone of that particular minority must have gotten where they are not on their own merit, but simply because they are that particular minority. This causes people to resent the minority group for getting for “free” what people feel they had to work hard for. People feel as though that minority is getting a “free-ride” and are inherently less worthy of what they achieve. This is damaging on a societal level because minorities who receive affirmative action are assumed to be less qualified and less valuable than others in society simply because many of them are aided by affirmative action policies. This not only creates damaging stereotypes, but also causes resentment and backlash from others in society who view affirmative action as simply unfair. This is best demonstrated by the backlash in America in the mid-1990s over the existence of affirmative action policies[1]. [1] Aka, Philip. "Affirmative Action and the Black Experience in America." American Bar Association. 36.4 (2009): Print.
Alternative- and more efficient- methods of funding universities are available

There are a number of viable alternatives to a graduate tax as a means of paying for Higher Education: Full state funding operates in many EU countries as part of an extensive and popular welfare state paid for out of general taxation; the value the state clearly places upon Higher Education has made it a common aspiration across all social classes. Other countries make individual students pay for all or most of the cost of their university education, which is widely seen as an investment in increased future earning potential. In the USA this has produced very high levels of enrollment and broad access to higher education as motivated students readily work to pay their way through college. Most also take out commercial loans, which are later paid off once the student is in employment; unlike a graduate tax these repayments are not open-ended and will one day be completed. The cost of educating a student to degree level varies widely both between and within countries, showing clear room for efficiency savings to be made in many institutions, perhaps through some focusing solely upon teaching rather than research, or by academic specialization.
A graduate tax would reduce teh autonomy of universities

If a graduate tax were introduced the money would go to the national treasury which would result in universities competing for the same money as colleges. At the moment the money generated from tuition fees goes straight to where it should go, straight to the universities bank accounts who provide the education. Under graduate tax proposals from the UK’s National Union of Students, raised revenue from the tax would go into a centralized higher education fund which could be distributed by the government through various means which could result in some universities getting unfair levels of funding relative to both their standing and student bodies. (Barr, N. 2009) This is impractical for universities to plan investments as they will never be entirely sure what funding they will have and furthermore and for many arguably most importantly universities will ultimately lose their independence from the state.
Graduates may move abroad to avoid tax payments

As taxes are collected nationally there is no reason why a UK graduate could not simply upon graduating leave the country and avoid paying the education tax. If enough people exploited this obvious loophole in the system the Government could end up severe deficit in the education budget which ultimately could lead to lower investment which would have a detrimental effect on the quality of education on offer. The proposed system then is simply not a practical one seeing as this massive and clear to see loophole exists with it.
Delivering funding via a graduate tax is the best way to encourage more students to enter higher education

The prospect of life-long higher-tax status will in fact act as a deterrent to many weaker students who doubt their abilities to make a success of a university degree, or those from poorer backgrounds with no family tradition of higher education. Introducing a graduate tax will simply come across as penalizing those who want to go into higher education rather than encouraging it. The real key to improved access to higher education lies in both better secondary education, as at present many potentially able students are failed by poor schools and are unable to achieve the qualifications needed to go on to university and by providing more bursaries for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
A graduate tax would make university funding more sustainable

The main problem with the proposition argument is the belief that a graduate will be earning £40,000 immediately after leaving university, this is clearly not the case, particularly in the current economic climate, the average starting wage for a graduate was in 2009 £23,500 with only one in ten exceeding £36,000. (Milkround, 2009) The argument does in part accept this weakness however what it does not point out is that many careers which require a university degree may never pay greater than £40,000. What a graduate tax focuses on is getting a job after university, this is not always the reason that people wish to go to university, take for example a mature student who just wants to self-better themselves, could they still get access to education when the system would be built upon getting young people into work? University should not be commoditized, it should be considered sacred in its own right; introducing a graduate tax turns university into a means to get a career rather than being a place of pure education.
A graduate tax would make access to higher education fairer and more equitable

As higher earners, graduates already pay a lot more on average in taxes over their lifetime, while consuming less in welfare payments, thus more than repaying their “debt to society”. In addition, the whole of society gains from higher education through increased economic growth and prosperity, and from the social mobility and integration that open access to university promotes. If the cost of higher education is an investment in the country’s future, it is appropriate for the government to fund it out of general taxation. In any case, the argument that an individual doesn’t use a particular government service, so why should they pay for it, could apply elsewhere and undermine most aspects of government activity and the taxation that pays for it.
Setting up a graduate tax system would be damagingly expensive

In the long term a graduate tax would save the state money by shifting the burden of costs to the main beneficiaries of higher education. It would also help to make the costs of expanding access to higher education more predictable and controllable, improving long-term planning. This means the early costs of setting up the system could be spread into the future by a bond issue, for example. The money saved can be spent better elsewhere in the education system, perhaps by improving secondary schooling so that more school leavers have the academic qualifications needed to attend university. Using the argument that change is not needed simply does not with students which a being saddled with debts before they even have work.
Alternative- and more efficient- methods of funding universities are available

The alternatives to a graduate tax are worse: Full state funding encourages many without clear motivation or ability to enter university, leading to high dropout rates, while removing incentives to complete courses in a timely manner. The USA has a philanthropic culture absent in many other countries, meaning private colleges have large endowment funds offering a very large number of bursaries and scholarships to poorer students. Nonetheless, the individual states do fund universities and few students pay the full cost of their higher education. Elsewhere in the world the absence of state funding tends to limit access to university to the children of a prosperous elite. Even in the USA students from some ethnic minorities are much more reluctant to take on high levels of personal debt, and are therefore very underrepresented in higher education. The USA’s high level of personal bankruptcy is linked to the high levels of debt built up while at university. A graduate tax then can be seen as a happy medium between the two extremes of Full state funding and No funding whereby the student pays for the benefit of having a higher education only when they are fit to do so.
A graduate tax would reduce teh autonomy of universities

A graduate tax put into an independent trust fund could in fact conversely help universities gain more academic freedom than they have now. They would be more free from market constraints which may restrict them, for example universities could be able to offer courses which may only be taken all be a very small fringe and would not usually be financially viable to run but which are culturally beneficially to have experts in if not useful economically. The argument that the state could interfere with the running of universities under a graduate tax system is erroneous, universities would still retain current levels of freedom from the government as the trust fund would be independent from government decision making and would be controlled by the stakeholders including universities meaning that they could worry a bit less about funding and exercise more independence on academic issues leading to better universities which are concentrating on their students’ needs and not just their own.
Delivering funding via a graduate tax is the best way to encourage more students to enter higher education

A graduate tax is the best way to increase access to higher education without massively burdening the government with an open-ended financial commitment. It is not a deterrent to the poorer students in the way fees and loans-based schemes are and which simply appear to block access, yet it still delivers sufficient extra capital to fund the increase of students entering university. Australia’s introduction of a graduate tax has been successful enough to allow university places to grow rapidly following its introduction with participation from both high and low income groups increasing by approximately one third. (Chapman, B. 1997). Therefore, a graduate tax removes the expensive barriers to entry that had previously kept out low-income groups, whilst not discouraging the high-income groups from tertiary education.
A graduate tax would make university funding more sustainable

A graduate tax would potentially give universities more than they get from traditional funding, as a contribution would depend directly on a person’s salary rather than just being a flat rate fare for services rendered over a short time. For example a person earning £40,000 would pay about £125 per month. (Shepard, J. 2009) That over 20 years could amount to £30,000, more than enough to cover the costs of a university education in a way which is manageable. Admittedly that sum is based on a person rising like a rocket but it still hints at the possibilities of the tax and how it could bring in more money than simply universities rising their fees. Secondly, it would change as a person’s salary rises or falls over a twenty year period, being more sustainable and increasing the chance of the costs being recovered. Thirdly, rather than giving a person a required fee to pay it would be giving a person a chance to pay over a set time period, reducing the financial impact of the bill.
A graduate tax would make access to higher education fairer and more equitable

A graduate tax would be fairer for everyone in society. Graduates earn considerably more than non-graduates, on average over £100,000 more in a lifetime (Channel 4 News, 2010.), experience lower rates of unemployment and greater job security, they therefore benefit hugely from higher education. They should therefore be expected to pay for the privilege of having an education which has put them in that position rather than having the rest of society fund there degrees, going to university should be an honor and not a privilege. While having a degree is useful it is not necessary for getting on with life, if someone wants to go to university they should have that opportunity regardless of their background but they should be expected to contribute to that education which is why the graduate tax works as students of all social classes can join university, not be loaded with debt and can contribute fiscally when viable.
Setting up a graduate tax system would be damagingly expensive

A graduate tax would be a very expensive scheme to put into effect, as it would require high levels of government spending on student grants before the first graduates began to repay anything through taxation. If all the 2011 English applications for university we’re accepted at the new top price of £9,000 it would cost the Government in the first year just over £3 million, and this figure does not take into account all the other grants universities receive and as time goes on and more years enter the system the figure will grow greatly. (Guardian, 2011.) It is likely then to be two decades of investment or more before the system begins properly to pay for itself. Furthermore a costly increase in government bureaucracy would be necessitated by the need to keep track of so many graduates and by the complications the system introduces to the general taxation system. With many Governments taking up austerity measures it is simply impractical to setup a new funding system which is not needed.
Free speech allows challenges to orthodox beliefs

Free speech is not merely a ‘nice thing to have’, it is a mechanism which brings real, tangible benefits to society by allowing people to challenge orthodoxy.  States that do not allow orthodox beliefs to be challenged stagnate and decline. Reducing restrictions on free speech to ‘special exceptions’ frustrates the whole point because it is precisely those special exceptions where established truth needs to be challenged.  This is not restricted to matters of pure opinion – the modern scientific process relies upon professionals being able to vehemently disagree on matters of crucial fact. “Real science depends for its progress on continual challenges to the current state of always-imperfect knowledge.”[1] [1] Sarewitz, Daniel, ‘The voice of science: let’s agree to disagree’, Nature, Vol 487, No.7, 5 October 2011,
Individual Liberty outweighs any potential harms

Whatever the potential harms that may arise from unrestrained free speech; they pale in comparison to the harm that arises from banning an individual from freely expressing his own mind. It is a matter of the upmost individual liberty that one’s thoughts and feelings are one’s own, and that individuals are free to express those thoughts and feelings openly.   A prohibition on this liberty is a harm of incalculable value – it strikes right to the core of what it means to be in individual person.
The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done

The argument leads to a slippery slope. It is one thing to regulate speech on matters that are objectively verifiable, quite another to restrict the permissible scope of opinion and expression.  Even then, the state should be extremely cautious about declaring a state of objective fact.  People taking advice on matters such as tax always take the risk that that advice may turn out to be bad, the amount of risk a person is willing to take is entirely a matter of personal responsibility and not a matter that the government should intervene in.
It may be necessary in the interests of national security

The ends do not justify the means. The government may well wish to suppress publication of information that would be prejudicial to its success in the next elections or its war campaign, but it’s in the public interest to know about their dirty dealings or illegal activities. Moreover secrecy in the name of security often leads to injustice; the rendition of British residents and secret evidence given at control order hearings are but a couple of examples.
Holocaust Denial

Society is self-regulating. The link between speech acts and physical acts is a false one - people who commit hate crimes are likely to have read hate speech, people who commit sex crimes are likely to have watched pornography but not necessarily the other way around. Viewers of pornography and readers of hate speech are therefore not incited to commit anything they otherwise would not do. If the advocates of these views have hidden agendas, all the more reason to expose them in public. The fact that Holocaust denial leads to neo-Nazism will, for most people, be one more compelling argument against it; creationism’s necessarily literalistic approach to scripture can easily be shown to be ridiculous. Again, the truth has nothing to fear, and the evil implications of falsehood should not be covered up by refusing to engage with it.
Free speech allows challenges to orthodox beliefs

Society is entitled to define itself on certain issues – otherwise what does it stand for? Community is only possible among like-minded individuals.  It is likewise entitled to tell those who refuse to accept the consensus on those issues to ‘lump it or leave it’.  It is also absurd to suggest that all challenges to orthodoxy are legitimate.  Denial of atrocities is usually a mask for racial intolerance.  Denial of established scientific truths in the public world is not usually about progress but rather about ignoring the evidence to promote theologically based worldviews.  Society has a vested interest in suppressing those movements.
The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done

"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic."[1] Shouting fire in a crowded cinema when there is no fire, and you know it, is wrong because doing so creates a clear and present danger of harm to others. Likewise, in the US (and many other countries) there is no protection for ‘false commercial speech’ (i.e. misrepresentation) and the contents of adverts can be regulated in order to ensure that they are truthful and do not deceive consumers.[2]  On that basis, restrictions can be placed on how tobacco products may be advertised, and people may be prevented from promoting illegal and fraudulent tax advice. [1] U.S. Supreme Court, Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 1919,  [2] U.S. Supreme Court, Lorillard Tobacco Co v Reilly, AG of Massachusetts, 533 U.S. 525, 200
It may be necessary in the interests of national security

The Government must protect its citizens from foreign enemies and internal enemies - thus freedom of speech can be acceptably curtailed during times of war in order to prevent propaganda and spying which might undermine the national interest. This has happened in almost all states during times of war, during the second world war the United States even had a government department dedicated to it; The Office of Censorship.[1] [1] Hanyok, Robert J., ‘Secrets of Victory: The Office of Censorship and The American Press and Radio in World War II’, Studies in Intelligence, Vol 46, No. 3,
Holocaust Denial

Speech acts lead to physical acts. Thus pornography, hate speech and political polemic are causally linked to rape, hate crimes, and insurrection. Both scientific creationism and Holocaust denial have serious, and dangerous, hidden agendas. Deniers of the Nanjing Massacre believe that the Japanese did nothing wrong in the Second World War and continue to claim that it was a war of liberation against western colonialism - feeding Japanese militarism today. Holocaust deniers, in claiming that a Jewish conspiracy is responsible for the widespread belief that six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, are closely allied to anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism. We should not allow such views the legitimacy which being debated gives them.
The EU has already been unifying on multiple fronts, this is just a step in the same direction.

The very creation of a common military framework has been fraught with disagreement. The UK and France have only been willing to cooperate bilaterally and outside the EU framework,  within a set of nationally-framed security interests. Both states are also very traditional military powers. While some states pretend to support the creation of a credible EU military capacity, they are unwilling to contribute seriously to its construction and when faced with a crisis almost always turn to the United States for military solutions.  While the EU does like to see itself as the diplomat of the world and flaunt its achievements with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), it still ponders the possibility of a middle-of-the-road strategy of militarization and securitization. In the meanwhile, it continues to reside comfortably within the US sphere of military protection while acting as an enfant terrible who rebels against and yet continues to accept US protection. It is a contradiction to argue that the EU is both attempting to build up its military force as well as providing an alternative sense of security that does not rely on military power. improve this
The fact that it is a Representative highlights the fact that the EU is based on consultation and consensus, and that is a positive thing.

Consultation, collaboration and the attempted creation of a common set of values has not worked and is not likely to work. This language is not much different from what we have heard with every attempt the EU has made to push for further political integration. The role of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), as agreed upon back in 1993 during the Maastricht Treaty, was in fact presented very much along similar lines. Fifteen years later however, that united front has not been created. If anything, the EU’s political union, and certain any attempts towards a common foreign policy, have completely disintegrated when faced with the War in Iraq and the larger war on terror and more recently the Euro debt crisis on another front.  improve this