Does anyone know what arguments in favor of Affirmative Action are being presented to the Supreme Court?
I was wondering about this: I constantly hear that we can't have Affirmative Action because it discriminates. So, I was wondering if the solution was ever stated as just a very plain process of statistical adjustment. So for example, suppose that 36% of black children under the age of 6 grow up in poverty, versus 11% of white children (this is indeed approximately the ratio I remember from the last Statistical Abstract I looked at). You do the math, here and all along the social spectrum, and you simply find a set of multipliers for things like GPA and SAT scores. You say: "The penalty imposed upon blacks from this area is approximately 1.5 GPA points, and 475 SAT points; the penalty imposed upon whites from the same area is 0.43 GPA points and 135 SAT points; the penalty imposed upon Latinos in the area is 1.25 GPA points and 450 SAT points; the penalty imposed upon whites living in Cambridge MA, is 0 GPA and 0 SAT" (etc., etc.). You could slice this however you like, aggregating very broadly or very narrowly (the latter is better) but the "cost" to those trampled on by society can surely be captured (in part) in "hard" numbers. Has anyone every done this comprehensively? Does anyone know if this is how the problem/solution is stated in legal argument? I have never seen the "penalty" aspect of the problem of discrimination stated in such plain terms, though I'm sure it has been. Bill
