Resolved: When making

admissions decisions, public

colleges and universities in the
United States ought to favor
members of historically
disadvantaged groups

Affirmative Case
Resolved: When making admissions decisions, public
colleges and universities in the United States ought to
favor members of historically disadvantaged groups
Definitions
Affirmative Action: an action or policy favoring those who tend to
suffer from discrimination, especially in relation to employment or
education; positive discrimination. Oxford Dictionary

Ought
Moral obligation
Historically Disadvantaged
1. Individuals as those who face challenges because of their race,
ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or other similar factors including
gender.
Source: Minority Medical Faculty Development Program,
My value is Morality. My value ties in with the Resolution and the
word ought. Ought implies a moral obligation. Therefore we are moral
obligate to favor members of historically disadvantaged groups.
The Criterion is Consequentialism. We need to look at the
consequences. We see the consequences of affirmative action will give
an advantage to the historically disadvantaged, which creates equality.
I will have to prove that affirmative action has good consequences to
prove consequentialism.

Contention 1: Affirmative Action creates diversity.

Richard Romano, (Professor at University of Florida) 2007

This paper examines the equilibrium practice of affirmative action by colleges. Several rationales for
attention to race in admissions in higher education have been put forth. One position is that

educational benefits are produced from diversity in student

bodies. The logic is that racial diversity in student bodies
promotes cross-racial understanding and breaks down
stereotypes, which better prepares students for an
increasingly diverse workplace and society. The educational
value of diversity was the crux of the University of Michigans
Law Schools defense for their admission policy in Bollinger et
al., the argument accepted in the Courts majority decision. As
well, Justice Powells opinion in Bakke, stated that attainment of a diverse student body was the only
interest expressed by the defendants that survives strict scrutiny. This paper examines the practice of

affirmative action that is motivated by educational benets from racial and socio-economic diversity of the
student body.

Affirmative Action helps the historically disadvantaged group to get into

higher education. This creates diversity in classes. Brown v. Board of
Education proved that separate but equal in Plessy v. Fergueson. One
consequence of Affirmative action is creation of diversity in higher education.
When historically disadvantaged groups dont have the opportunities that the
advantaged group has and is not in a competitive environment. They will be
less productive and motivated in the work place. If someone is a productive
and motivated worker than they will be more successful in life.

Contention 2: Affirmative Action helps minimize structural violence.

Michelle Maiese Associate Professor of Philosophy at Emanuel College 2003
Affirmative Action does not create structural violation.
Social and political institutions set the context for individual and group behavior and are meant to provide

How people act and live is shaped in

large part by the social structures in which they find themselves.
Social justice is, in part, a matter of ensuring that these structures and
institutions do in fact satisfy basic human needs. In some cases
however, a society's social institutions are characterized by
exploitation, political exclusion, and unequal access to resources.
These structural forces often create a system of winners and losers in which people
become trapped in a particular social situation. Structural violence often results, in
the form of power inequity, poverty, and the denial of basic human
rights. Basic human needs go unmet, and groups suffer from inadequate access to
resources and exclusion from institutional patterns of decision making.
the resources individuals need to survive.

[Unjust structural forces and divisions also contribute to discrimination, lack of education, and inadequate
employment opportunities. An example of this sort of structural violence is the effect of deindustrialization
on minority and working-class communities in the United States.

Affirmative Action gives historically disadvantaged groups an advantage. It

makes sure that there is no deprivation of human rights. It helps groups in
poverty and gives opportunities to the disadvantaged.

William M. Chace, (Professor of English at Stanford University and

former President of Wesleyan and Emory Universities, Winter 2011)
Affirmative Inaction, The American Scholar,
http://theamericanscholar.org/affirmative-inaction/
What happens if the handicapping is taken away? The same authors found that the outcome would be

with acceptance rates falling for African-American

applicants from 31 percent to 13 percent and for Hispanic
applicants by as much as one-half to two-thirds; Asian-American
dramatic,

applicants would occupy four out of ve of the seats created by fewer African-American and Hispanic
acceptances. The Asian-American acceptance rate would rise by one-third from nearly 18 percent to more
than 23 percent. Most astonishingly, it turns out thatcontrary

to the assumptions of
those who contend that affirmative action puts white students
at a severe disadvantagewhite applicants would benefit very

little from the removal of racial and ethnic preferences; their

acceptance rate would increase by less than one percentage
point. Given the probable results of eliminating affirmative actiona student body consisting almost
wholly of whites and Asian Americansno chief administrator of a respectable
college or university would happily oversee the erosion of the
presence of black or Hispanic students.
Affirmative action does not in fact signicantly hurt advantaged groups
chances of getting in. If Affirmative action does not affect the change
in acceptance rates for advantaged groups than there would not be
animosity between the groups. Another consequence of affirmative
action is the minimization of structural violence.
Contention 3: Affirmative Action granting the same joint right to other
groups as it offers to the previously excluded groups. This includes
hardships and rewards.
Kwame Anthony Appiah (lectured at many schools including Harvard,
Yale, Cornell, Duke, Appiah graduated from Cambridge), Group Rights
and Racial Affirmative Action, Volume 15, 2011
Must have the same hardships and rewards system.
Since legal collective rights are extremely common, as I
pointed out, it is hard to mount a principled objection against a
legal collective right to outreach in virtue of its being a legal
collective right. But there is a further reason why a collective right to outreach for blacks is
uncontroversial: It does not seem to entail denying the individual rights of non-blacks . That is
because it is explicitly stated as granting the same collective
right to other groups as it offers to the previously excluded
groups. Even if an individual white person could show that a
policy of outreach reduced his probability of employment
which, of course, it often wouldit is hard to see how, in these
circumstances, he could claim that this reduction in probability
amounted to denying him a right. As we shall see below, it is often not the group
right for the formerly excluded that opponents of afrmative action really object to , it is the
alleged denial of some individual right to members of
historically privileged groups. In this case there is no plausible argument of this form.
Peter McHugh, (Social Theorist, Yale University), Human Studies, Volume 28,
p. 137, 2005
Sharing equality is not simply a matter of sharing of objects, say
hardships and rewards. It is not a distributive standard. In fact many collectives which do
share also believe it appropriate that hardship and reward maybe unevenly
distributed. To share freedom, emancipation, the kind of sharing that we will name shared being, is
more elemental than that (even though it can of course affect distribution). It is to recognize
that human experience of the world is of an intersubjective space,
an arc of encompassing language and history within which is formed

a sense of tradition, of place, and of ones self in that place . In that

respect shared being is substantial, really an experience of itself, of being within lifes substance as a
particular living composition of the possible and impossible. In that experience its space and language

It is a
materialization of the real. Shared being in our case is for white
faces to extend that notion of a person to black faces, faces with the
capacity to understand themselves, their evaluations, and their
choices in some reasonable accord with the trajectory of the real.
become objectied, objectied as unalterable form and structure and all possibility and limit.

The competitive environments that are for opportunities are not

spread out equally. Without Affirmative action, disadvantaged groups
would already know that they dont have the opportunities that the
advantaged group has and would be less motivated to work hard and
would be less successful in life.
Affirmative action grants the same joint right to other groups as it
offers to the previously excluded groups. This is important as stated in
the value to reach equality in social welfare. Affirmative Action
minimizes structural violence. Affirmative action maximizes the
amount of people who benet thus following Social Welfare.