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Affirmative action


Consider an investment firm whose clientele consists solely of older white males. It may very well be in the firm's best interests to have a workforce consisting of older white males. Yet most would think it completely unjust for such a firm to give preferential treatment to a less qualified older white male over a black applicant. If diversity as a basis for affirmative action was justified, then it would have to be asymmetrical meaning that one could instead prefer a uniform distribution of race in an institution. Because this would not be acceptable, it would be wrong to label diversity and uniformity as right and wrong accordingly.
             Another basis for affirmative action is made by Andrew Valls. Valls states, "Affirmative action provides a fairly low-cost way of partially satisfying the requirement to rectify the effects of past violations of rights by increasing opportunities to close the gap between black and white income"(Valls 69). In his attempt to make a libertarian case for affirmative action, Valls believes that the practice is justified based upon past injustices towards a particular group of people. His justification is also flawed, not necessarily because of its logic but rather its feasibility. Placing a value on past injustices such as slavery is not possible. This is not to say that rectifications don't come in both feasible and non-feasible forms. An example of the former would include the United States" reparations to the Japanese put in internment camps during World War II. The injustice had been fairly recent and its affects reasonably undisputable (much of it was based on loss of property). Unfortunately, rectifications for an injustice like slavery would fall into the category of the latter. One would have to research the past in an attempt to decide such queries as whom the victims and victors of the injustice were and how might their situations be different today.


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