Affirmative action – pros and cons.

When thinking about affirmative action, one has to acknowledge that the reason for any such action is a reaction to the problems formerly unsolved. Positive discrimination is discrimination as well and one has to found a compromise about it, as Elliot claims, it is only a tentative solution. Race cannot function as a measurement for evaluation of humans – be it admitance into a university or anywhere else. The resolution in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke showed that racial quotas are unconstitutional and this should function both ways. When trying to uphold the black population because whites have these advantages already, one agains stresses the difference between races. Race, as opposed to social statues is an invented concept. I would say that there is not a problem with quotas, but with “racial” quotas, because there is no such thing as a race – one would have to make a boundary between white and black, it would be necessary to show how many white/black descendants are still making the one particular human black or white. Thus, quotas against any minority are a very awkward solution, if the authorities make difference between races and not social statuses. In my view, there should be positive discrimination for any minority, but such discrimination should not be based on any outer difference (be it color or anything else) but solely on their social situation – for example the addmitance to university should be made possible equally to those who are able to pay for it and also for those who are not.

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