WI No Affirmative Action in the US

What if there was no Affirmative Action in the US from the late 1960's to the present?

I am thinking here of any sort of policies (not necessarily quotas which I believe are unconsitutional) which put in place forms of 'positive discrimination' in favour of previously disadvangted groups, i.e. African-American and lower-income people.

I ask this question not from the typical conservative view that is against what it sees as favouritism towards minorities. I instead ask it from the viewpoint of many left-wingers outside the US (and in particular in continental Europe) that sees affirmative action as a basically ineffective soution to the problems faced by poor and minorities. I've spoken to some French friends who are quite strong social democrats who are fundamentally opposed to these policies (it came up in conversation about the problems faced by French Arabs). T

They said (and I would have to agree) that a far better solution would have been more spending on public facilities such as school hospitals housing, etc, in poorer inner-city in the US which would have helped all poor and African-American people, not just those who went to university (for instance).

How would the US have been different if over the past almost 40 years, there had been no affirmative action at all and instead greater public spending in socio-economically depressed areas.
 
Well, in the troop draw downs after the Cold War, Selective Early Retirement Boards, or "SERBs" where convened. My dad was involuntarily retired by a SERB that had been given specific instructions to only retire white males. In this ATL he retires in 2000, giving him 28 years of active duty, the maximum for a LTC, instead of only 20. His pension would be 70% of his active duty pay instead of 50%, and things would have been a whole lot easier. The Army was a big part of his life. He has never really been the same guy since.
 
Affirmative Action grew out the move to integrate certain sections of Society Following the Civil Rite laws of the mid 1960's.
This was a giant step up from the Courts directive to De Segregate With all possible speed.

So the POD would be States moving Faster to pass Bills repealing the Segregation Laws.
Without De Jure Segregation, a lot of Steam would be let out of the Civil Rites Movement.

The Civil Rites Bills would focus on repealing some of the effects of Segregation [Redlining, voting problems etc.]
This would include bills to ensure Equal funding of Government programs.
Equal spending for all in Education or Medical funding etc.

Opponents would be able to point to continuing segregation, as being De Facto, the choice of the people involved.
 
No Affirmative action?

The most obvious issue to chose would be job quotas and on the whole life would be better without them. In the UK legislation has been directed at promoting equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome. Some forms of affirmative action to address inequality is justified but it is a subjective dividing line between affirmative action and positive discrimination.

Equality of opportunity is incompatable with equality of outcome. Margaret Thatcher describe the former as the equality of opportunity to be unequal. The widespread belief that minority groups are getting preferential treatment fuels resentment one example being the allocation of social housing in East London. The real criteria is actually need but it tends to favour recent arrivals. It has caused large scale resentment against groups in need by people on housing waiting lists, a perceptive minority of these people see the problem as being the people doing the allocating and not the group allegedly favoured. A very tiny number see it as a form of divide and rule that diverts attention from the real problem. A dearth of social housing.

Some kick starting may be necessary i.e special training opportunities. However people are individuals and there may be individuals in a disadvantaged group who will get on anyway like Colin Powell and individuals in an advanaged group who have needs. Rigid sociological stratification is a form of stereotyping. Social groupings should be seen more in terms of quantum theory than rigid Newtonian Physics.

In practice it is being increasingly recognised in the UK that class i.e wealth distribution is a more divisive ssue than gender which is being slowly addressed and ethnicity where some progress has been made. It is probably the same in the US, in the last weeks of his life Martin Luther King realised that poverty was as big an enemy as discrimination. Jesse Jackson realised that not all poor whites were trailer trash and Obama has an agenda that reaches out way beyond the black community.

In conclusion the effects of discrmination were probably so severe that some kick starting was necessary, the problem is that once a group gains certain privildges it is loathe to give them up. Job quotas probably by now are an asset for the Republican right to win votes
 
What if there was no Affirmative Action in the US from the late 1960's to the present?

There would be no knowledge of the hypocrisy of the phrase 'reverse discrimination'. Discrimination is descrimination - nothing positive about it. Perhaps there would be less of a victimhood mentality.
 
No Affermative Action?

Perhaps there would be more emphasis on an individual's merit, rather than what one looks like or where his ancestors came from.
 
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