Affirmative Action, Discrimination, and Equality
In June 2023, right-wing influences on the Supreme Court weakened affirmative action, and so I am thinking about under what conditions discrimination is justified. Discrimination can be used in a couple senses. In the first sense, there’s discrimination in the sense of finding some group or quality less valuable than another group or quality. In previous centuries, only white men were educated. Now women and people who are not white can also receive education. Previously, women and people who are not white were discriminated against in education, meaning they were found less valuable or unable to be educated. In the second sense, there’s discrimination merely differentiating between two things, with no claim in difference of value. I can divide all quarters into those minted before 1979, or those minted in 1979 or later, but they are all still worth 25 cents. Only one person can be President, and we try to choose them carefully. So in some sense we discriminate between