From: gwangung@carson.u.washington.edu (Roger Tang)
Subject: Re: Political Power--Why the quotas?
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 06:58:32 GMT

In article <1992Dec20.031527.2924@news.columbia.edu> dnm9@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (David Neal Messina) writes:
>In article <1992Dec20.010545.7736@u.washington.edu> gwangung@carson.u.washington.edu (Roger Tang) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec19.110841.28798@news.columbia.edu> dnm9@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (David Neal Messina) writes:
>>>In article <1992Dec18.162559.5808@u.washington.edu> gwangung@carson.u.washington.edu (Roger Tang) writes:
>>>My feelings on the "glass ceiling": there are already laws against it
>>>in place, and so to the extent that these are effective, there is
>>>recourse.  Beyond that, there is nothing the government can do.
>>	Why not?  If it's out there, why does the government have to
>>accept it?  This in effect sanctions that type of behavior by the
>>government.
>By what means would you have the gov't. combat the problem?
	Well, now there's the rub...despite the polemics from all sides of the
debate, this is not an issue withj easy answers or solutions. Meritocracy is
a desired goal, but it works best with clearly delineated masuring instruments;
the  best example is in sports, but even here, it is not particularly clearcut
(how can it be, when, say, the black QB controversy lasted until the mid 1980s).

	I'd like to make it easier for applicants to bring suit to make
companies justify their decisions on the basis of job requirements. Despite
Wards Cove, I hardly think it justifiable to have a 95% white managerial staff
in an area which has a heavily non-white population.


>>  The
>>>problem results from a tiny portion of the population; until they die
>>>or change their minds, we'll have to wait.
>>	I think that this behavior comes from SUBSTANTIALLY more than a
>>tiny fraction of the population (see, for example, the data on mortgage
>>lending, matched employment pairs, etc. The studies have flaws, but they
>>suggest that there are things going on out there that many people
>>are not comfortable with).
>I thought you might take issue with this. <grin> No matter how
>widespread the phenomenon is, I don't see an effective solution.

	Then, are you advocating that nothing be done? I don't see that
as ethnically satisfactory.

>Enacting quotas that demand a certain percentage be doled to the
>various minority groups cannot be done without consequences.  W

	This, of course, is not being done. BUt ethically, why is this
ethically more reprehensible than allowing the current discrimination
to continue?


>>	And, again, this does NOT solve the problem of past discrimination,
>>which does persist and have ramifications on the present. Nobody doubts
>>that there was widespread discrimination in the past; yet, if that
>>discrimination distorts your candidate school, I would hardly call it a
>>meritocracy if you do not take that into account.
>How does one make amends for past events?  The heretofore widespread
>racism has been made illegal.  Those who practiced it are not around
>today.  To attempt a restitution policy would punish those entirely
>unrelated and unaccountable for the prior injustices

	Why are you thinking of this as a zero-sum game? That for one
person to win, another has to lose? That choosing a minority must
necessarily be choosing a lesser candidate?

	Look at it this way: you are modifying the search rules to locate
someone who is able to do the job, but does not have the credentials
because of past discrimination. As well, you are deliberately modifying
the search rules to guard against you own unconscious biases.

	This in no way "punishes" non-minority candidates, because, if you
look for minority candidates who were slowed by past discimination, you
would be finding people who WOULD have made the cut anyway, if there had
been no past discrimination.

	Note that this is not a simple-minded. automatic-advantage-given-to-
all-minorities type of perspective. It's less cut and dried and it requires
a more demanding look at circumstances.

>>	May people THINK we operate under a meritocracy. However, the
>>problem is that there are flaws in the process.
> I do not profess that everyone conducts their dealings under a
>meritocracy, but the situation is not one of everyone behaving
>equally.  There is no one way of doing things which everyone
>prescribes to.  Yes, Roger, there are racists.  No, they are not
>predominant.  Even if they were, there are many whose sole criterion
>is merit. 
 Quotas undermine the equality we seek because they
>emphasize race, assuming people of one race to be more like each other
>(in a substantive, relevant way) than like people of other races.  

I think you're dancing around my point that since MANY people do not
utilize a true meritocracy, acting and believing that there is one
undermines equality just as well, if not more so.

>To wit, if you don't believe merit to be a truly equitable or
>realistic method, please propose what you would have in its stead.

	I think you miss my point that what is CONSIDERED merit is often
incomplete and does not get at what we think of as merit. And that
currently, it is not the complete method by which jobs and what not are 
awarded. I'd have much less problems with what is going on if there were more
measures complementing the orthodox ways of measuring "merit."




-- 
Roger Tang, gwangung@u.washington.edu
Producer Emeritus, Asian Theatre at the UW
	"The definition of balls is for a non-singer to go karaoke singing
with the cast of a musical revue."