Affirmative Action

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.