Ethics

Clarke on Buchanan and Affirmative Action

By Ed Brayton

Conor Clarke, guest blogging at Sully's, reacts to Pat Buchanan's tirade against Sotomayor over getting in to Princeton through an affirmative action program:

When I see a walking, talking anachronism like Pat Buchanan say on MSNBC that Sonia Sotomayor isn't qualified for the Supreme Court because she's an affirmative action baby (via Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ezra Klein), I think back to one of the favorite conservative criticisms of race-based affirmative action: It will forever tar the accomplishments of its beneficiaries. In a way, the fact that Buchanan's worry is so widely shared is obvious proof that this criticism is true. And, in a way, it just proves that the criticism is self-fulfilling. If the same people who doubt the efficacy of affirmative action also doubt its beneficiaries, there's nothing terribly interesting about the latter critique.

Seems reasonable to me.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on July 21, 2009 (boomark / email).