Affirmative Action
A comment on “No Choice but to Stay the Course,” by Fletcher Wiley (Commentary, May 4), praising affirmative action programs: Two wrongs do not make a right. The end does not justify the means. And when people are treated unequally because of the color of their skin, that’s discrimination, that’s racism--period. It doesn’t matter that now the victims are Caucasian American instead of African American (or males instead of females, Anglo instead of Latino, or whatever). We can be a nation where the law applies equally to all. Or we can be a society where people “gang up on one another and struggle for possession of the law, which they use as a club over rivals, till another gang wrests it from their clutch and clubs them with in their turn” as the late Ayn Rand said in “Atlas Shrugged.” Supporters of affirmative action should picture themselves trapped in a burning building with their loved ones beside them, then ask themselves if they want the fire department to reflect the racial and ethnic background of the community, or would they rather have the best firefighters available coming to their aid, regardless of race or gender.
JORDAN A. SIMPSON
Huntington Beach
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As a small-business owner I must take issue with Alexander Astin’s May 1 commentary on affirmative action and most especially with his analysis of employers versus public universities. Contrary to Astin’s assertion that the “employer seeks to exploit talent,” I can assure you that as an employer one of my primary goals is to develop and cultivate talent. While I certainly do not look toward a short-term tenure followed by graduation like the public university system, I have consistently found that hiring employees with an eye to the future benefits my company as well as the employee. Indeed, my most lucrative and loyal employees by far have been those whom I have trained myself, rather than those with extensive prior training and/or experience.
Astin is certainly correct in stating that employers look to hire the “best” applicants. But is this not indeed what every institute, organization and employer should be looking for in an applicant? The concept of “disadvantagement” is a slippery one, subject to interpretation and reinvention. Moreover, disadvantagement is not a finite fact or number that is easily quantifiable. How then does one give “enough weight” to such a concept?
Hiring on individual merit without thought or “weight” to gender, race or ethnicity has yielded a diverse, productive and happy staff for my own company. I believe that the same policy applied at the public university system and other companies will produce similarly positive results.
NETTIE BECKER
Beverly Hills