Was I Entitled or Should I Apologize Affirmative

Authors: Anita L Allen

Publish Date: 2011/04/16

Volume: 15, Issue: 3, Pages: 253-263

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Abstract

As a US civil rights policy affirmative action commonly denotes raceconscious and resultoriented efforts by private and public officials to correct the unequal distribution of economic opportunity and education attributed to slavery segregation poverty and racism Opponents argue that affirmative action 1 violates ideals of colorblind public policies offending moral principles of fairness and constitutional principles of equality and due process 2 has proven to be socially and politically divisive 3 has not made things better 4 mainly benefits middleclass wealthy and foreignborn blacks 4 stigmatizes its beneficiaries and 5 compromises the selfesteem and selfrespect of beneficiaries who know that they have been awarded preferential treatment By way of a thought experiment imagine that after decades of public policy and experimentation the United States public finally came to agree affirmative action is morally and legally wrong Employing such a thought experiment this essay by a beneficiary of affirmative action—written in response to James Sterba’s Affirmative Action for the Future 2009—examines duties of moral repair and the possibility that the past beneficiaries of affirmative action owe apologies compensation or some other highly personal form of corrective accountability Beneficiaries of affirmative action have experienced woundedness and moral insecurity Indeed the practice of affirmative action comes with a psychology a set of psychological benefits and burdens whose moral logic those of us who believe in our own fallibility—as much as we believe in the justice of what we have received and conferred on others—should address

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