'Positive Discrimination' in the US: What It Is and Why Trump Abolishes It - ForumDaily
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'Positive discrimination' in the USA: what it is and why Trump is abolishing it

The administration of US President Donald Trump has withdrawn the recommendations to universities, according to which they accept applicants of racial and national minorities on preferential terms. Experts say in an interview Air force, what are the results of the “affirmative action” policy and why the Republican administration wants to end it.

Фото: Depositphotos

Last week, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded 24 official documents, many of which contained recommendations regarding “affirmative action” in admissions to educational institutions.

The American press suggests that the Trump administration will completely propose that colleges and universities do not take into account race and nationality when admitting applicants - this will be in line with the ideology of the Trump administration and the Republicans.

The George W. Bush administration had previously repealed affirmative action guidelines, but they were reinstated under Democratic President Barack Obama. The US Supreme Court is currently considering an affirmative action lawsuit by Students for Fair Admissions against Harvard University.

The BBC Russian Service asked American experts to answer three questions about “positive discrimination.”

Why are the Republican Party and Trump against affirmative action?

Ivan Kurilla, Professor at the European University at St. Petersburg (Russia):

First, we need to understand the historical context of the introduction of affirmative actions (we will focus only on education, although this policy was and is used in hiring): when the legacy of slavery and segregation came to the fore in the national debate in the 1960s, the question is how it can be quickly overcome - after all, more educated Americans had an advantage when preparing their children for college, and reproduced social divisions. In the USA it took a racial form.

Affirmative actions were created to overcome this division, to allow more non-white children to go to universities.

In terms of stimulating education for African Americans, these policies were successful. But from the point of view of classical liberalism, important to many members of the Republican Party, it violated the basic principle of individual equality: belonging to a group that occupied unprivileged positions in society now confers advantages. The debate around affirmative action has been going on for almost 50 years - Democrats support it, Republicans criticize it. Although there are exceptions on both sides.

Andrei Znamensky, Professor, University of Memphis (USA)

Trump and many Republicans dislike “positive discrimination” because it puts the rights of a particular racial, ethnic or gender group above the rights of the individual. They often point out that "affirmative action" runs counter to Martin Luther King's famous message: judge a person by his individual qualities, not by the color of his skin.

An important part of Trump's election campaign was the fight against political correctness, which irritates many Americans. For them, political correctness, especially in matters of race and gender, is closely linked to the policy of "positive discrimination", including in the field of education.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions withdrew recommendations on the preferential admission of minority students. Photo: Facebook /
Jeff Sessions @ jeffsessions

Are the results of “positive discrimination” positive?

Ivan Kurilla:

The results are positive, but the question is how long does it make sense to maintain this policy. Is it possible at some point to consider that she has reached her goals and has exhausted herself, and if so, when?

Andrei Znamensky:

In my personal opinion, if you look not in the short term, but in the long term, the results of “positive discrimination” are negative.

Built into the administrative and political system of the state, it contributes not to unification, but to the separation of people, indirectly encouraging mistrust and envy on racial, ethnic or gender grounds.

Affirmative action, primarily for African Americans, Hispanics, and women in education, hiring, and business contracts, was originally intended to be a temporary measure in the 60s. But after 50 years, this policy has exhausted its possibilities, acquired a network of bureaucratic institutions and, as often happens, turned into an ideological end in itself: to ensure proportional representation of racial and gender groups from above through administrative means.

For example, at Berkeley University in California, 175 special officials monitor the implementation of this policy.

Studies have shown that many African-American and Hispanic students who are admitted to elite universities with notoriously low rates fail to cope, and therefore there is a high dropout rate among them. This creates another problem: how to keep them within the walls of an educational institution, since for reporting it is necessary to have good indicators for graduates from minorities. In other words, thanks to the artificial quota policy, people were out of place.

Recently, “positive discrimination” in general and in education in particular has been criticized not only from the right, but also from the left. In the pages of The Nation and Slate magazines, critics noted that Democrats and the left were too fixated on identity politics (race and gender issues) and consigned socio-economic indicators to oblivion. Relatively speaking, why is a poor white student with low grades from somewhere in the Appalachian region rejected by an elite university, while a student from the family of a wealthy African-American lawyer or official gets into this university with the same grades because of his skin color?

Фото: Depositphotos

The Trump administration has decided to support a lawsuit by 60 Asian American organizations against Harvard University to partially roll back affirmative action. Schoolchildren and students of Asian descent are superior in all educational indicators not only to “minorities of color” but also to white Americans. In their lawsuit, the groups accuse Harvard of artificially understating Asian applicants in favor of white and other applicants in order to ensure proportionate representation of ethnic and racial groups at the university.

What could be the consequences of canceling “affirmative action”?

Ivan Kurilla:

Administration cannot directly indicate to private universities.

But if the federal government wants to achieve execution, it can set the conditions for receiving federal money. For employers, the way it is: affirmative action is obligatory for those who have government contracts.

Andrei Znamensky:

In my opinion, in the short term, this will cause strong discontent with the mainstream wing of the Democratic Party, which is tied to identity politics, as well as discontent with nationalist African-American and Hispanic groups.

In the long term, a shift in emphasis with a gradation of applicants on a racial basis in the direction of their assessment on individual qualities and socio-economic indicators should create a healthier atmosphere in American universities and in society.

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