In the essay titled “The Case against Affirmative Action,” Louis Paul Pojman critically analyzes the affirmative action (AA) doctrine by distinguishing between the so-called “strong” and “weak” forms of AA that refer to discrimination against white men and the provision of equal opportunity, respectively. Firstly, by discussing the heated dispute over ending AA in California’s public institutions due to its status as a form of discrimination, the philosopher highlights strong AA’s ability to cause social division and the concept’s ambiguousness from the moral point of view.
Secondly, Pojman mentions ongoing social issues in the U.S., including tremendous child poverty and the lack of training and professional development resources for many citizens. By this, he argues that the U.S. Federal Government aims to use strong AA, such as employment quotas, to mask its inability to provide the entire nation with the required necessities and competency development opportunities.
Next, the author rejects strong AA from a philosophical standpoint by arguing that it is based on common fallacies of relevance, such as the idea that two wrongs (substituting minorities’ oppression by the oppression of the majority) lead to something right.
Pojman aims to refute several different arguments for AA; he replies to the role model argument by stating that having role models of one’s race is not mandatory to achieve success and claims that equal representation policies do not address the inter-group gap in achievement. Also, the compensation assumption is criticized as an attempt to inflict the responsibility to compensate for decades of slavery on modern people that have nothing to do with slave ownership, and Pojman highlights that diversity does not override the moral obligation to treat all individuals with equal respect.