Reply to UPenn Law Professor Amy Wax: US "better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=jsteele][quote=Anonymous]Jeff, again, it's not me drawing conclusions, it's plain English written as the conclusion of the article, which is that gender equality in terms of resources and opportunities leads to an increase in differences in preferences, which in turn explains increased social/economic outcome inequalities. If your challenge to the article is with the language, I did find the full research paper which is quite a bit more technical:

https://ftp.iza.org/dp12059.pdf

The types of societies that you mentioned in your scenario 1 are actually covered in the study. They show up in figure 1 diagram D: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, etc. These countries have low gender equality but also larger differences in gender preference. However, in the grand scheme of things, they are outliers and do not detract from the general correlation "best fit" line that indicates a clear inverse correlation between gender equality and gender preferences.

As to why this study came up, someone suggested John Rawls as a luminary who could square the conflict between classical liberalism and social/economic outcome equality. I referenced this study to point out that John Rawls was wrong in one of his core beliefs, which is that providing equality in opportunity creates more equality in outcome. In this regard, the critical theory folks are actually more correct, which is that while there are many paths to inequality, the only way to get equality of outcome is inequality of opportunity. Therefore if you want equality in outcome, then rampant government-sanctioned discrimination and injustice is the only way to get there.

How this relates to affirmative action, I guess the use of affirmative action does add to the pile of evidence that the critical theorists are right and John Rawls was wrong. There certainly is more social equality with affirmative action, even if society as a whole is worse off for it even if some individuals do benefit. [/quote]

I don't have the time or energy to go through that study line by line, but I am confident that either their methodology was flawed, their data was inadequate, or their conclusions are wrong. The idea that greater equality between genders results in worse economic outcomes for women is simply not supported by what I see with my own eyes. But, I have to ask, based on your attitude towards this study's conclusion, do you support greater inequality between genders?

As I understand your position, you support a sort of laissez-faire approach in which there are no benefits or restrictions based on gender, race, or anything else? You believe that this provides equal opportunity for all, right? [b]I would argue that this is a naive view that ignores many structural and historical advantages held by certain groups.[b]The history of the US, and indeed much of the rest of the world, has resulted in an uneven playing field. It is akin to a baseball game in which the bases are loaded and the batter has hit the ball. In theory, all three runners on base have an equal opportunity to get home. In reality, the player on third has a significant advantage over the player on first. Because of these unequal starting positions, I support efforts to establish an even playing field. Affirmative action is one method of decreasing historical disadvantages.

I can understand why someone like yourself who either started from a disadvantaged position or at least thinks you did would resent others getting a boost up that you didn't receive. Everyone has advantages and disadvantages to some degree and it is generally hard to evaluate who has it worse. [b]But, it is unarguable that race-based discrimination in the US was unequaled and contributed greatly to creating an unequal playing field. I[/b] don't believe that a laissez-faire approach based on unequal starting positions truly results equal opportunity. Rather, I would call what you support "unequal opportunity". 
[/quote]

I dont think this person is American, as their argument consistently ignores this fact of US history. It seems to be from the pov of someone who came into a system and doesn’t think they are getting a “fair” shake. [/quote]

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