Affirmative Action by Brooks Larsen

According to Munzer, we try to understand the knotty
problems of policy rather than propose simple,
universal solutions. This concept of policy made the
discussion by Stone about affirmative action more
interesting. Affirmative action policies are meant to
address the problem of discrimination, mainly geared
toward African Americans.

In Stone’s chapter on equality and the equitable
distribution of resources, affirmative action is
mentioned as an example of a policy in which a fair
process is generated regarding resource distribution.
But creating a fair process with affirmative action
becomes a struggle in perpetuity because of the
conflict between group and rank-based distribution.
Group-based distribution of resources sounds a lot
like simple universal solutions which policy analyst
are supposed to avoid. The problems associated with
group-based distributions have to do with reverse
discrimination, such as occurred in Bakke v. Regents
and with the distribution of resources to those
minorities who have not necessarily experienced
discrimination.

Based on these problems, rank-based distribution seems
to be the better solution to affirmative action
policies but even these distributions are not without
their problems. The main problem seems to be the
criteria used to determine distribution. In one case,
the University of California had established new
admissions criteria in order to maintain diversity
among students. In other cases, criteria changed as
problems and situations have defined or guided them.
So apparently the trick is to find criteria that will
not be so susceptible to change and that will allow
distribution based on rank to be effective in the
allocation of resources. But admittedly, this is not
an easy task.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/bridgeproject/criteria/newcriteria.html

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/affirmativeaction.htm

(This is Brooks Larsen's Post, we couldn't get it to show up under his User ID so I put if up for him)