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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!sbcs!debray
From: debray@sbcs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics
Subject: affirmative action
Message-ID: <371@sbcs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 4-Jun-83 15:30:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: sbcs.371
Posted: Sat Jun  4 15:30:24 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 6-Jun-83 22:28:18 EDT
Lines: 22


Without taking sides in the lively debate on the Affirmative Action Program
in net.flame (shouldn't we move it to net.politics, where it really belongs?),
I'd like to ask a question:

Whether or not AAP is good or bad, it is a fact that it requires that
criteria other than purely academic/professional qualifications be used
to determine one candidate's suitability for a position over another's.
In theory, the program will be terminated when its goals have been met.
However, from what I've experienced elsewhere (re: my earlier article on
an AAP-like program in India), people being helped by such programs can
very well become "addicted", and politicians may very well find such
programs a convenient way of wooing voters from minority groups (not to
mention the fact that terminating such programs might be seen as being
politically dangerous!). Clearly, one would have to come up with objective
criteria that would be able to demonstrate conclusively, and to everyone
concerned, that the goals of AAP had/had not been achieved. My question
is: can anyone suggest criteria that might be used?

Saumya Debray
SUNY at Stony Brook
...philabs!sbcs!debray