[Katie_UPS]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

What I do have a problem with - and what does concern me - is when people are subconsciously OR intentionally selected based on their race/gender/religion/socioeconomic background. Maybe this is a girl or a boy being passed over by a sexist employer (instead hiring a less-qualified applicant of a different gender) or maybe it's an admissions counselor trying to meet a quota/ratio and so selecting someone of a particular gender or background. College admissions and the job market are not the times to be trying to push demographics one way or the other... I want the best doctors, engineers, business leaders, scientists, teachers, politicians, etc. If we want to push demographics in one direction or another, organizations should be working to motivate and equip people of all types prior to those critical junctures (as FIRST does, and tries to continue doing better).

The problem with the "I want the best person for the job argument" is explained by Steven Smith:

Originally Posted by Steven Smith

Regarding Reverse Discrimination
...
I get why that feels so wrong, and I can appreciate the feeling of “reverse discrimination”. If you are up for a job, and are 5% more qualified on paper than another applicant, and hypothetically that applicant gets an edge “to meet a quota”... for the individuals in question it doesn’t matter… it just feels wrong. However, what if that 5% the slightly more qualified applicant had was because more opportunities afforded them, or they didn’t have to work through college and could study more because their parents could afford to pay for it, or any other number of reasons that have less to do with how “good” that individual is, and more to do with their parents and their society. Maybe their parents had two kids, and as the boy, they got all the attention, worked in their father’s shop, and was trained from a young age that “engineering was right for them”, while the girl got Barbie dolls and didn’t realize until later in life that she too really liked engineering and was perfectly capable of doing it as well, but had to play catch-up. Maybe the person that is 5% less qualified on paper has had to work harder to get there, and would make a better employee. Or maybe it’s all backwards and the (hypothetically white male) applicant was the poor one that worked their butt off, and the minority applicant actually had well off parents and got all the benefits plus an extra boost. All that said, it is a fact that these subtle (or less subtle) negative biases exist, and the purpose of affirmative action really just to match them with a positive bias.

(by the way, the whole post that I pulled from is really good and is worth a re-read especially for anyone who doesn't understand why affirmative action is a thing)