A Pragmatic Alternative to Affirmative Action

The Supreme Court’s recently held in the Richi case that New Haven, Connecticut fire fighters who passed an exam necessary for promotion enjoyed the protection of the Constitutions’ Equal Protection Clause.  Consequently, it would be improper to set aside the test results on the basis that no African-Americans who took the exam passed.  Apparently, the exam was designed specifically to ensure that cultural and racial factors may have an impact on the results.

Some columnists have declared that this represents the end of affirmative action as it has been practiced in recent years.  This would not be a negative development.  Achieving real equality in a society is not possible since we all are individuals with different backgrounds, capabilities, and experiences.

Connections are often decisive factors in an individual being hired for a job, getting promoted, accepted to an institution etc.  This is not desirable.  If possible, personnel decisions should be based on merit. Recently, Financial Times Columnist Michael Skapinker wrote an insightful piece criticizing unpaid summer internships.

Such internships are often important factors in college students getting jobs after graduation in an increasingly competitive job market.  Of course, not all individuals are lucky enough to be able to afford to not earn money over the summer.  Should these students be at a disadvantage when they apply for jobs since they lack a prestigious internship on their resume or don’t know those individuals personally who might have the ability to influence a hiring decision within an organization.

We have minimum wage laws — but internships somehow are not covered.  Perhaps this can be justified if a student is working for a non-profit organization and is receiving college credit (and hence can accelerate their studies, saving money in the process.  What about for profit organizations?  Sometimes internships are a way for employers to assess individuals who will eventually replace existing workers.

There is no way to ensure equal opportunity.  Affirmative action based on race (as well as the alleged use of goals or targets) is unjustified.  As President Obama indicated that no one can say that his children are disadvantaged.  No one can challenge his intelligence and achievements.  The same can be said of Attorney General Holder and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.  Is affirmative action based on race an anachronism?

Affirmative action should be primarily but not entirely based on economic factors.  Of course, such a system is not without its drawbacks since circumstances change over time.  Nonetheless, it is the truly disadvantaged whom society owes special consideration.  We should not overlook the hurdles certain people need to overcome — such as poor public schools, growing up in high crime areas, being raised in dysfunctional families, overcoming a disability, etc.

It is likely that such an approach to affirmative action might result in the pool of persons being favored as being disproportionally African-American or Hispanic, these persons could be thought as deserving that additional thought be given to their circumstances, since their disadvantaged backgrounds may have had an impact on an awareness of their options or  intellectual development.  Not everyone grows up with computers in their households, receiving special tutoring, and going to camp or on foreign family vacations.

We are all in agreement that children should not be punished for the sins of their parents.  If children spend part of their lives growing up in public shelters, in orphanages or a series of foster parents, should society in essence continue to punish them?  Income and circumstance discrimination should be what should be considered with respect to affirmative action.

People should not be judged on the color of their skin, particularly when according to the U.S.  1990 Census indicates that 4% of the households in America are mixed race.  Individuals should not be arbitrarily assigned to racial and ethnic groups that benefit from so-called “Equal Opportunity” programs.  Similarly, people should not be discriminated on the basis of age.

This is not to deny that racism, ethnic and religious bias does not exist in this country.  Only an invasion from Mars will make us recognize that we share a common humanity.  There is nothing improper about ensuring equal opportunity, provided that the particular circumstances of the individual are taken into account.

Russian Strategic Thought: Prisoner of the Past

Recently, U.S. President Obama showed a high degree of candor when he quipped that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin still had one foot in the Cold War.

At this week’s Moscow Summit, he was more diplomatic (i.e. restrained).  He focused his attention on areas where the U.S. and Russia seem to have  common interests:  achieving greater strategic arms reductions, counter-acting Islamic militants in South Asia, and most probably slowing down nuclear proliferation (although possibly not including Iran).

It seems only those subjects upon which there was agreement in advance among the two sides’ staff can be considered resulting from the meeting.  Still deadlines produce results.  Achieving results on complex issues is far more difficult.

Unfortunately, the U.S. may have seemingly forgot about the Russian invasion of Georgia when it agreed to resume limited military cooperation that were suspended in the aftermath of last August’s events.  Perhaps it would have been wiser for President Obama to make a commitment to seek to end trade restrictions that are in place as a result of outdated Jackson-Vanik Amendment.

No agreement was achieved on contentious topics.  This demonstrates that Russia wishes that the U.S. would acknowledge its sphere of influence in the “near abroad” (i.e. the Soviet Union’s successor states (minus the Baltic States) — most significantly Georgia and Ukraine).  This will not come to pass.  It also seems that a large share of the Russian national security community have yet to accept that the Czech Republic and Poland are sovereign countries.

No doubt, upon his return to the U.S., the Obama administration will point to the President’s meeting with opposition figures as evidence that he had not abandoned the promotion of human rights and the rule of lawin Russia since he met with Russian opposition figures.

Still there does not appear to be any major concrete consequences for Russia to penalize it for its domestic policy — but the possible loosening up of  requirements for non-governmental organizations to register seems to be a positive development — now to see how it is implemented.

Just as the Soviets were fearful of the implications of Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”), the Russians’ anxiety over missile defense in Europe is unjustified.  The deployment of any defensive system would be limited in scope.  The Russian military has far greater confidence in the U.S.’s ability to develop and operate an effective missile defense system, thus Moscow’s concern appears exaggerated.

Apparently, the Russian leadership is no longer threatening to deploy offensive missiles in Kaliningrad.  This is inherently logical as ever military threat creates the necessity of countermeasures.  Events in both Georgia and Estonia suggest that the Russian military establishment is examining the potential of cyber-attacks, after all anti-missile systems rely on computers.

Now in a war-time environment, how much confidence should we have that our weapons systems will be able to operate as planned? Just think how many times that U.S. launches of rockets have to be postponed due to bad whether or the malfunctioning of some part or system that had already been checked by NASA engineers many times over.

Russian strategic planners may not fully  appreciate that nuclear power plants are very attractive targets for cruise missiles and conventional aircraft. Russia (and other countries dependent on nuclear energy such as France), face the very real danger of having their population irradiated; such a calamity would result in an untold number of deaths due to cancer and other disease as well as give rise to a food crisis the world has never seen.

At this stage, no news in U.S.-Russian relations is probably good news.  President Obama can show the Russians the respect they crave without making any concessions.  If both Zbigniew Brzezinski and Michael McFaul seem pleased with the results, who am I to disagree?