Note to moderators and others: This thread is not a rehash of all the previous threads on affirmative action. I have a clear and defined subpoint that I am pursuing here that is different from the run-of-the-mill affirmative action debate.
There are, to my knowledge, two justifications used by advocates of racial preference programs like affirmative action:
1: The programs seek to rectify past discrimination.
2: The programs seek to increase "diversity."
We are concerned here with the second point. The word "diversity" is a holy word on most college campuses these days, but, in my experience, it is not very effectively defined. It usually seems to mean "taking people of different ethnicities and putting them in the same environment."
Here is the question, then: is the goal of increasing diversity, whatever you take that to mean, sufficient justification
in and of itself to racially discriminate against members of dominant racial categories in college admmissions, job hiring, government contracts, etc?
If you think this question is purely hypothetical, consider than many of the black students at the college I attend are from Africa or otherwise outside the United States. Yet, it seems pretty clear that black people within the United States have been more severely discriminated against by white Americans than have black people in Africa...
Just something to think about.
