even aside from losses to the economy as
a whole because of disincentives created
for both preferred and non-preferred
groups there are social losses due to
intergroup resentments which can be even
more serious nor are these resentments
due simply to the transfers of benefits
when a serious political backlash
against affirmative action began in the
united states many in the media were
quick to characterize it dismissively as
due to angry white males resentful of
the losses of various benefits to blacks
and other minorities
in other words just an emotional
reaction by people irked at losing a few
of their many advantages
but this resentment was by no means
proportional to intergroup transfers of
benefits or it would have been far
greater against asian americans who
displaced more whites in prestigious
universities and in many high-level
professions especially in science and
technology
at many of the leading universities in
the united states whites lost more
places to asian americans than to blacks
and yet there was seldom any backlash
against asian americans the outstanding
academic and other achievements of asian
americans were widely recognized and
widely respected
it was not the intergroup transfer of
benefits that was resented but the basis
for those transfers
among americans especially the idea that
some are to be treated as more equal
than others is galling
it was this feeling in the general
population which leaders of the civil
rights movement of the 1960s were able
to mobilize behind their efforts to
destroy the jim crow laws of the south
so that a majority of the members in
both houses of congress from both
political parties voted for the landmark
civil rights act of 1964 and the voting
rights act of 1965
it was this same american resentment of
special privilege which responded so
strongly to the historic words of the
reverend martin luther king jr at the
lincoln memorial in 1963
that his dream was of a country where
people would be judged not by the color
of their skin but by the content of
their character
it was after the civil rights movement
itself began to move away from this
concept of equal treatment of all
individuals and toward the concept of
equalized outcomes for groups that a
backlash against affirmative action set
in and grew over the years
there is yet another sense in which
resentments against preferences for
other groups are not proportional to the
benefits transferred
an observer of preferential policies in
india noted the disproportionate
resentment of places reserved for
scheduled casts the official euphemism
for untouchables
we hear innumerable tales of persons
being deprived of appointments in favor
of people who ranked lower than they did
in the relevant examinations
no doubt this does happen but if all
these people were in fact paying the
price for appointments to scheduled
casts there would be many more sc
persons appointed than there actually
are
to illustrate supposing that 300 people
qualify for 10 posts available
the top nine are appointed on merit but
the tenth is reserved so that the
authorities go down the list to find an
sc applicant
they find one at 140 and he is appointed
whereupon all 131 between him and the
merit list feel aggrieved
he has not taken 131 posts he has taken
one yet 131 people believe they have
paid the price for it moreover the
remaining 159
often also resent the situation
believing that their chances were
somehow lessened by the existence of sc
reservations
in the united states as well those who
resent group preferences may be some
multiple of those who have in fact
actually lost anything that they would
have had in the absence of these
preferences
in the 1978 landmark supreme court
challenge to affirmative action brought
by alan bakke a white student denied
admission to a university of california
medical school
neither side to the dispute could state
with confidence that baki would or would
not have been admitted in the absence of
the affirmative action policies which
admitted minority students with lower
academic qualifications than his
the admissions process was sufficiently
complicated that it was not clear
whether some other white or asian
american students might have been
admitted instead of baki
in other words it was not certain that
baki had in fact lost anything as a
result of affirmative action
and yet his sense of being wronged was
sufficient for him to pursue the case
all the way up to the highest court in
the land
one of the things that prevents
affirmative action from being a zero-sum
process is that minor transfers of
benefits can cause major resentments
among far more people than those who
have actually lost anything
moreover these resentments do not end
with political or legal actions
in india where preferential policies
have a longer history than in the united
states they have also had more bitter
consequences
42 people died in riots over places
reserved for untouchables in a medical
school in the state of gujarat just
seven places
this was part of a national trend of
rising violence against untouchables
amid adverse reactions against
preferential policies in general
meanwhile less than five percent of the
medical school places reserved for
untouchables in gujarat had actually
been filled over a period of years
studies of university admissions in
general in various parts of india showed
a similar pattern of many places
reserved for untouchables going unfilled
nevertheless minor transfers of benefits
led to major resentments including
resentments erupting repeatedly into
lethal violence
nowhere has this resentment led to more
violence than in india's neighboring
nation of sri lanka which has been
racked by decades of civil war in which
the non-preferred group the tamils have
sought to secede and become an
independent nation
it is clear that affirmative action in
sri lanka has not been a zero-sum
process
the material political economic and
social havoc created by that country's
long civil war has undoubtedly left all
segments of the population worse off
than they would have been in the absence
of group preferences and the reactions
to which those preferences led
you