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ACTION page 8
on their own merit, so it's going
to get them into jobs and schools
under the wing of affirmative ac-
tion," he said.
That's insulting, Mr. Weinraub
contends, and it does nothing to
eradicate racism.
"Life is not fair, and you can't
dictate fairness. Through affir-
mative action, the government is
telling you whom you can hire,
whom you can fire, and in a
sense, it is dictating a company's
growth," he says. "We're seeing
some type of backlash. Ws breed-
ing contempt. Affirmative action
is reverse discrimination.
"It used to be in this country
that the best person for the job
got it. That's no longer the case,"
he says.
Some blacks — most notably
economists Thomas Sowell of the
Hoover Institution in California
and Walter Williams at George
Mason University in Virginia —
have repudiated affirmative ac-
tion for similar reasons. In con-
trast, other black leaders, like the
Rev. Jesse Jackson, advocate set-
asides, preferences and quotas as
reparations or "affirmative ac-
tion" for centuries of oppression.
Mark Bernstein at U-M says
he knows a highly qualified
young man who could have put
an "X" in a minority check-box on
applications for law schools. But
the applicant didn't acknowledge
that he was black, says Mr. Bern-
stein, because he disagreed with
a race-based admissions policy.
The applicant got in.
"(But) he didn't want to get in
for those reasons," Mr. Bernstein
says. "He was worried that he'd
get into law school, get out, and
people would see him as a prod-
uct of affirmative action."
Nonetheless, Mr. Bernstein be-
lieves in affirmative action poli-
cies, so long as they take into
account a broad spectrum of ways
individuals from different back-
grounds can enrich their class-
rooms or companies. To him, the
benefits of affirmative action out-
weigh the deficits.
"The negative impact may be
a result of what I believe is a valid
policy," he says. "There's much to
be gained from walking into a
classroom with diversity."
Supporters of affirmative ac-
tion generally agree that qualifi-
cations for jobs or schools ought
to be based on more than a grade-
point average and test scores. An
individlial's ethnic and social sta-
tus should be taken into account,
as well.
But Mr. Bernstein and Lau-
rence Imerman, past president
of the American Jewish Com-
mittee, go on to question exact-
ly how a group gains minority
status.
"Who's the great arbiter of
this?" Mr. Imerman asks.
Should government anoint
blacks, Eskimos, Asians, His-
panics, women, American Indi-
ans, gays, elderly, fat and phys-
ically challenged people as part
of an underprivileged class? And
what happens when a formerly
disadvantaged group rises in the
ranks?
"I think affirmative action did
open up the door for many peo-
ple who would not have had the
opportunity for college or for mid-
dle- class jobs," Mr. Imerman
says. "The question is, should the
children of the people who ben-
efited still receive the same ben-
efits, even though their parents
have now 'made it'?"
And then there's the flip con-
sideration:
"Everyone says the Jews are
doing just fine, that all Jews are
successful," Mr. Bernstein says.
"Yet, what about an Orthodox
Jew with a yarmulke who en-
counters more discrimination in
the hiring process than someone
else who is not as easily identi-
fied? These Jews don't benefit."
In the book, Chutzpah, attor-
ney Alan Dershowitz explains
why he favors affirmative action.
However, he also notes what he
_views as pitfalls.
"To reward some persons for
"Life is not fair and
you can't dictate
fairness."
— Michael Weinraub
the accident of their race is in-
evitably to punish others for the
accident of theirs," he writes. "...
I have long advocated the devel-
opment and vigorous application
of affirmative action programs
that are not based on race alone.
But these are harder to imple-
ment, because they must be in-
dividualized rather than based
on group criteria."
Twenty-two-year-old Joe Feld-
man, a recent Wayne State Uni-
versity graduate, upholds a
meritocracy. "The only time I fa-
vor a special type of indulgence,"
he says, "is when it can be proven
that a particular individual has
directly suffered from some sort
of discrimination."
The topic, ripe with serious
controversy, might remind some
people of a stale old joke:
A visitor to New York City
once approached an elderly man
on the street and asked, "How do
you get to Carnegie Hall?" The
man looked at him and, with typ-
ical Big Apple tartness, snapped:
"Practice." ❑
So long as the gentiles are ill
at ease with themselves they
want Jews to be there, to
bear the blame for all con-
ceivable ills.
Havelock Ellis