increasing female representation in the House of Commons (the elected chamber)
has been the British Labour Party, and that success can be attributed to ‘all-women’
shortlists imposed on local constituencies by the central party. The point being that
all-women shortlists guarantee an increase in the number of candidates in Labour-
held or winnable seats – the policy acts on outcomes and not on opportunities. The
inequality of outcome in the other political parties is an indication that, despite
various efforts, equality of opportunity has failed.Affirmative action
Affirmative action policies involve an explicit departure from the normal ‘equal
access’ and ‘equal opportunity’ criteria for awarding a person a favoured position.
The normal criteria include: (a) the position is open to all, and (b) selection is by
competence, which is measured by qualifications. There are various types of
affirmative action policies:- EncouragementThe job is advertised in newspapers read by particular
communities, such as ethnic minorities. - Tie-breakingIf two people are ‘equally qualified’ then you choose the person
from the ‘disadvantaged group’. This is the weakest form of affirmative action. - HandicappingAn example of this would be requiring higher entry points, or
grades, for applicants to university from wealthy backgrounds. - Quota systemA certain percentage of jobs must be filled by a particular group
- this is usually subject to a requirement of minimum competence.
All-women shortlists are a version of the quota system and involve a setting aside
of (a), and some critics would argue that it also entails setting aside (b). Affirmative
action could, however, be defended on grounds that the evidence of qualification
for a position cannot be taken as an accurate indication of a person’s competence.
To illustrate this point, let us imagine that entry to a good university normally
requires 20 points in a school-leaving exam. Person A, from a poor background,
scores 17 points, and person B, from a wealthy background, scores 21 points.
However, evidence from the performance of previous cohorts of students suggests
that (economically) poor students with lower entry points achieve a better final
result on graduation than wealthy students with higher entry points, and so person
A is predicted to do better than B, and therefore objectively is better qualified.
Interestingly, this argument is meritocratic, and indeed is a technical, rather than a
philosophical, objection to other principles of equality: existing evidence of
competence is not reliable, so we have to broaden selection criteria to include
prospective performance based not on the individual applicant’s past behaviour but
on the statistical behaviour of students from their background. However,
distribution is still tied to the actions of individuals.
There are other ways of understanding affirmative action: it may be intended to
provide role models; compensate a groupfor past injustices; increase the level of
welfare of a disadvantaged group. Some defences are backward-looking, in that
they seek to redress something that happened in the past; other defences, such as
the one discussed above – prospective student performance – are forward-looking.
A common, everyday objection to affirmative action is that it undermines respect
- this is usually subject to a requirement of minimum competence.
70 Part 1 Classical ideas