Dworkin

’s Belief Of Preferential Treatment Essay, Research Paper

Dworkin’s Belief of Preferential Treatment

For many years, preferential treatment has been used to try to make up

for past wrong-doings to minorities. There have been many cases tried over

racial discrimination, with verdicts of both innocent and guilty. Ronald

Dworkin attempts to argue that preferential treatment is socially useful and at

the same time does not violate people’s rights. This is wrong for many reasons;

here I shall illustrate how preferential treatment hinders racial equality,

violates people’s rights, and can lead to a lower opinion toward a particular

race.

Dworkin believes that continuing preferential treatment will decrease

racial consciousness and the importance of race. This is the total opposite of

what truly happens. If a person were to consider America’s past, as an example,

he would see how racially diverse people were. Now look around. Just walking

across any given area, groups of people of the same race are seen walking

together. Most people do not notice this, but very rarely are groups of

ethnically diverse people seen. Although there are no longer any laws stating

that there must be a separation between different races, people still practice

it unconsciously. Dworkin states that the long-term goal of preferential

treatment “is to reduce the degree to which American society is overall a

racially conscious society (294).” Preferential treatment does nothing of the

sort. It was used widely in the past and still exists in some areas today. It

has not reduced racial consciousness, but increased it by making people think

more about how many spaces are reserved for their particular race. Instead,

people should think of what their chances are of getting something on account of

their personal knowledge over someone else’s, not even considering their race as

a factor. This is evident in a black’s point of view of getting into the

medical school of the University of California at Davis. Sixteen places are set

aside just for blacks and other minorities, no matter how low their test scores

are. That way, minorities don’t even have to worry about competing with whites

for a position. This does not, in any way, reduce racial consciousness by

setting two tracks for admission to medical school, one for the minorities, and

one for the majority.

Mr. Dworkin supports the idea that preferential treatment does not

violate people’s rights. His argument is weak here because he attempts to prove

this by saying that if two things do not violate people’s rights, then neither

does a third. The two things that supposedly do not violate rights are the

denial of someone to medical school because of their age and because their test

scores are just below the cutoff line of admission. He then assumes that

because these two do not violate rights, then neither does denying an applicant

because he will not reduce racial consciousness as much as an individual of

another race would. By taking this argument apart piece by piece, it is evident

that all three parts of his argument violate rights. Preferential treatment

violates a person’s right to be “judged on merit and merit alone(299).” Dworkin

says that another definition for merit is qualification, and for some jobs, race

can be a qualification. Given a specific job, certain human characteristics are

more desirable than others. People with these preferred characteristics are

more likely to get this job. For example, a desirable quality for a surgeon is

steady hands; therefore, a person with steady hands is more likely to get this

position than a person with shaky hands. Using race in a similar example,

preferential treatment would be just if there were a job where one race is more

qualified than another. The problem with this is that there are no such jobs.

Dworkin says that denying a person admission because of his age does not violate

that person’s rights, but then, is the individual being judged on his merit and

merit alone? No. It is therefore wrong to discriminate against someone

because of their age because it violates his rights.

A second objection to Dworkin’s belief that preferential treatment does

not violate people’s rights is that people have the right to be judged as an

individual. Preferential treatment supports grouping people together according

to race and then judging them as a whole. Dworkin agrees with Colvin when he

says that people have the right not to be disadvantaged because of one’s race

alone. Many colleges set cutoff limits to the applicants’ scores that they

admit. Some applicants that barely fall below the line have much more

dedication and enthusiasm than those above the line, and would make better

students by these attributes. Unfortunately, these students are not even

considered because they are not looked at as an individua

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