Principles of Compensation (Fred Speaking)
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The super-liberal principle would justify almost anything. I support the original principle. This one is way too broad. By stretching the ideas of indirect harm and indirect benefit, almost any black job applicant could claim a preference over almost any white applicant. It makes no difference whether the white applicant ever discriminated against anyone. It makes no difference that he might come from a poor family. And besides, do you really have any way of deciding which employers discriminated and by how much? Is there a way of deciding who has been indirectly harmed or who benefited? Without some method, your rule is unworkable --or just a cover for a policy that assumes that all employers discriminated and all blacks have been unjustly harmed.

In practice, this approach assumes that all the problems of black job applicants and students are the result of discrimination. But if that were true, white people would have no problems at all. And that's crazy.

To be fair, we have to make some effort not only to prove that serious discrimination has occurred but that it is the cause of the problems encountered by the person applying for a job or to a school. Your approach tends to ignore both.

Besides that, the burden of compensation falls on the young white job applicant. But of all whites, the young ones have benefited the least from systematic discrimination. It is the older ones who gained the most.

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