Blairingly Obvious: Every company should rethink affirmative action

I listened last week to a recording of the commencement address that physicist Richard Feynman gave one year at the California Institute of Technology. The theme of the talk was the importance of scientific integrity. He tells the story of how a physicist once calculated the charge of an electron. Unfortunately, he used the wrong figure for the viscosity of air and so his calculation was off. It took a long while, however, for anyone to find the error, because other scientists, who were getting measurements that were really correct, would look for reasons why they must be wrong, and when they got wrong answers they didn't question them, because they assumed they must be right. As Feynman put it, they just didn't look as hard for reasons why some answers might be wrong, as compared to answers that were closer to what they wanted.

This is an instructive story to keep in mind whenever we are told that companies should look especially hard to find employees that will move the company toward greater "diversity." In the first place, if companies are looking especially hard for people of one color, then they are going to overlook and show less interest in people of another color. That is the point, right? Second, if your company has told you, a manager, that it wants to find qualified people of a particular color, then you inevitably are going to put your thumb on the scale whenever a candidate of the "right" color appears. Don't want to disappoint the boss, you know.

Either way, you will not be hiring the best people. Sometimes the best person will also happen to be the "wrong" color, and so he won't get hired. Other times, the person of the "right" color will seem to be suitable, but only because you are looking so hard to find someone of that color.

It will not do to say that there is nothing wrong with giving a preference on the basis of race when people are hired, so long as they are required to meet the same standards as everyone else once they are given their chance. In the first place, you have already hurt someone, namely the better qualified person who now gets either a less desirable job or no job. In the second place, there are degrees of competence, and even if the hired person meets the company's standards, it is likely that they won't be met to the same high degree as they would have if the better qualified person been hired. And in the third place, the company will, inevitably, be pressured to lower its standards at the post-hiring stage as part of its commitment to "diversity." It must not only hire but also "retain" employees in a demographically and politically correct way.

Suppose the police pull someone over in part because he is black. It turns out that there are drugs in the car. Would the NAACP excuse the stop because, after all, ultimately everything worked out okay? Of course not, but this the mirror image of what the proponents of diversity are advocating for the workplace. It is all right to discriminate in hiring if the employee works out okay.

The New York Times' experience with Jayson Blair is, no doubt, an extreme case, but other companies that demand diversity will inevitably sacrifice excellence as well. Here's a pronouncement from the General Motors website: "All managers are expected to meet or exceed their diversity goals set through the Affirmative Action Program and initiatives and efforts. Executive representation goals have been set for each GM Sector and performance and targets are expected to be fully satisfied."

Don't tell me that this isn't going to result in GM managers putting their thumbs on the scales in their hiring and promotion. The best people won't get hired and promoted. Maybe this isn't as big a deal as the Times fiasco (fewer cars get sold), or maybe it is (more cars crash).

If you hire according to factors A and B, then factor A doesn't matter as much as when you hire only according to factor A and nothing else. If a company considers race or ethnicity as a factor in its hiring, then it will be weighing merit less. There is no way around this stubborn fact. And if it is known that the company does this, then the coworkers of the employees in the "benefited" groups will assume that those employees are not as qualified — and, of course, in the aggregate their assumption is perfectly correct, even if there are many exceptions to it.

Everyone loses. The company hires less-qualified people and make less money. People in the unfavored groups don't get hired. Perfectly well-qualified people in the favored groups get stigmatized as "affirmative action hires" even when they aren't. And unqualified people in the favored groups are put into positions where they inevitably fail, as Jayson Blair failed.

Companies should stop "celebrating diversity" and instead simply hire and promote the best people. The Jayson Blair affair is a wake-up call, not just to the Times, not just to the media, but to the whole country.

I appreciate Mr. Clegg writing this but it is simple common sense that has been known by all ever since AA began. The left and the media have simply demonized common sense to the point that few will stand up for it anymore. That was their goal and they won.

To win back the lost ground we will have to elect courageous people who will gradually change the direction of society. It can't be jerked around by the reins without great upheaval. This administration MAY do that.

Apparently the NAACP is furious at the high failure rate of black students on the Florida state tests required for high school graduation. Instead of asking why these students are NOT learning basic skills, NAACP leaders are calling for a boycott of businesses in Florida to politically force an end to the "racist" testing.

This color preference issue has been faced before - with disastrous results.

During the Cultural Revolution the slogan used to persecute those considered part of the technical and intellectual elite was - "Better Red than Expert."

Same crap, different country, different color.

Unfortunately, we elected courageous people in 2000. But that will change nothing with respect to the "Diversity" movement. Nothing changed within the Departments in the Federal Government. Diversity councils still exist. Affirmative action plans in all their complexity still exist. Diversity internship programs still exist. Minority contracting (8A programs) still exist.

Even though the law unequivically requires jobs to be filled by measuring only job related skills, everyone ignores the law.

In the private sector, companies would rather have plans such as those reflected in the article than face down Jesse Jackson and his extortion. On the presumption that no single hiring (no matter how flawed) will hurt the company, they will implement outrageous diversity plans, rather than have EEOC come down on them.

You will frequently see all black commercials. Try and find an all white commercial. They almost never exist.

What no one will say out loud is simply, "When I have selected someone based on his color and he is not the best qualified, then I have rejected someone simply because of his color". That is against the law!

I agree with everything you say. I said this would take a gradual turnaround because of all you mentioned. The trial lawyers are the brown shirts of the left and they spook people into acceptance of the once unacceptable. That is why it will take time. However, I think Bush, with guidance from Carl Rove, will head this thing in the right direction before he is through.

My best friend recently retired from NASA, and I can remember his lamentation on how the agency had changed since he had started. His comment was, "we used to be known as the best and the brightest. That may not be the case any more, but at least we're among the most colorful."

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