For many years, preferential treatment has been used to try to make up for past
wrong-doings to minorities. There have been many cases tried over racial discrimination,
with verdicts of both innocent and guilty. Ronald Dworkin attempts to argue that
preferential treatment is socially useful and at the same time does not violate people's
rights. This is wrong for many reasons; here I shall illustrate how preferential
treatment hinders racial equality, violates people's rights, and can lead to a lower
opinion toward a particular race.
Dworkin believes that continuing preferential treatment will decrease racial
consciousness and the importance of race. This is the total opposite of what truly
happens. If a person were to consider America's past, as an example, he would see how
racially diverse people were. Now look around. Just walking across any given area,
groups of people of the same race are seen walking together. Most people do not notice
this, but very rarely are groups of ethnically diverse people seen. Although there are
no longer any laws stating that there must be a separation between different races,
people still practice it unconsciously. Dworkin states that the long-term goal of
preferential treatment "is to reduce the degree to which American society is overall a
racially conscious society (294)." Preferential treatment does nothing of the sort. It
was used widely in the past and still exists in some areas today. It has not reduced
racial consciousness, but increased it by making people think more about how many spaces
are reserved for their particular race. Instead, people should think of what their
chances are of getting something on account of their personal knowledge over someone
else's, not even considering their race as a factor. This is evident in a black's point
of view of getting into the medical school of the University of California at Davis.
Sixteen places are set aside just for blacks and other minorities, no matter how low
their test scores are. That way, minorities don't even have to worry about competing
with whites for a position. This does not, in any way, reduce racial consciousness by
setting two tracks for admission to medical school, one for the minorities, and one for
the majority.
Mr. Dworkin supports the idea that preferential treatment does not violate people's
rights. His argument is weak here because he attempts to prove this by saying that if
two things do not violate people's rights, then neither does a third. The two things
that supposedly do not violate rights are the denial of someone to medical school because
of their age and because their test scores are just below the cutoff line of admission.
He then assumes that because these two do not violate rights, then neither does denying
an applicant because he will not reduce racial consciousness as much as an individual of
another race would. By taking this argument apart piece by piece, it is evident that all
three parts of his argument violate rights.
Preferential treatment violates a person's right to be "judged on merit and merit
alone(299)." Dworkin says that another definition for merit is qualification, and for
some jobs, race can be a qualification. Given a specific job, certain human
characteristics are more desirable than others. People with these preferred
characteristics are more likely to get this job. For example, a desirable quality for a
surgeon is steady hands; therefore, a person with steady hands is more likely to get this
position than a person with shaky hands. Using race in a similar example, preferential
treatment would be just if there were a job where one race is more qualified than
another. The problem with this is that there are no such jobs. Dworkin says that
denying a person admission because of his age does not violate that person's rights, but
then, is the individual being judged on his merit and merit alone? No. It is therefore
wrong to discriminate against someone because of their age because it violates his
rights.
A second objection to Dworkin's belief that preferential treatment does not violate
people's rights is that people have the right to be judged as an individual. Preferential
treatment supports grouping people together according to race and then judging them as a
whole. Dworkin agrees with Colvin when he says that people have the right not to be
disadvantaged because of one's race alone. Many colleges set cutoff limits to the
applicants' scores that they admit. Some applicants that barely fall below the line have
much more dedication and enthusiasm than those above the line, and would make better
students by these attributes. Unfortunately, these students are not even considered
because they are not looked at as an individual, but judged solely by their scores. Now
imagine a situation similar to this where race is the determinant of whether a person is
accepted or not. If a person were to be turned down from a college because of his skin
color before he was given a chance to be interviewed, the college may loose a very smart
student. Skin color should not be used to group people because within one skin color,
many different kinds of people can be grouped together. A possible alternative to this
approach is similar to it, but with one slight change-create a range around the cutoff
line where the students are considered on an individual basis. Those inside this zone
with admirable qualities are accepted and those without are rejected.
The third objection that preferential treatment does not violate people's rights is that
a person has the right not to be excluded, disadvantaged, or denied some good because of
race alone. In Bakki's case, Dworkin agrees that he would have been accepted had he been
a minority, but says that he was not disadvantaged because of his race. He says that
Bakki would also have been accepted had he gotten better test scores or had been younger,
so his color is not the only thing that kept him from being accepted. Here, Dworkin is
comparing apples and oranges. A person's color is no determinant of whether he should be
suitable for a job, and neither should his age (although I will not discuss this here).
His knowledge is what is important. A doctor should not be turned away because of his
race or because he may be a few years older than another, but he may very well be turned
away because he is not performing his job to the necessary degree because he lacks the
needed knowledge. A person's color or age has nothing to do with his intelligence. This
is yet another weak argument given by Dworkin.
One more disadvantage to preferential treatment is how people feel when they work with
people who have been helped by preferential treatment. If a black man were to apply to
medical school and be accepted only because of his skin color, what kind of business
would he run if he were to make it out of medical school for the same reasons? There
would be a great disadvantage to giving him a little extra leeway because of his race.
During college, he might not try as hard on his studies because he knows he will make it
by and therefore not gain all the necessary information to be a good doctor. Then, after
he graduates and works with other doctors, he may not only give his race a bad name by
not knowing what he should have learned in college, but he may also lose patients from
being misdiagnosed. It is clear that giving racial preferences can lead to great
problems in the future, and should therefore not be used.
Many people have explained both advantages and disadvantages to preferential treatment
since the racial injustice campaign began in 1954. One of whom is Ronald Dworkin, who
spoke on the side for preferential treatment. He argued that while decreasing racial
consciousness, it does not violate anyone's rights. When trying to prove his side, he
uses examples that are uncharacteristic to racial preferences such as race being a
qualification for a job. Although Dworkin argues his point well, he uses examples that
just do not back up his beliefs as well as they should and do not draw a distinct line of
why preferential treatment should be used.
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