Principles of Compensation (Malik Speaking)
		Comment				MAIN PATH: Fred
				Fred

Decades after slavery, some state governments created separate schools for blacks, put more money into the white schools, and kept blacks out of the better professional schools. They forbade blacks to use the better libraries and kept them off juries. And maybe worst of all: It was state governments that refused to let most blacks vote. My point is that because these policies were acts of government there is a sense in which our society acted formally and AS A WHOLE to harm blacks. Responsibility for those actions continues even if the whites who supported them are dead. And the harm done has indirectly harmed the children and grandchildren of the people who were directly mistreated by their own government.

To allow for this corporate aspect of racial injustice, we need a GROUP principle of justification. Consider this:

"The white population acted through legislation and custom (which they fostered) to systematically discriminate against the black population. The white group harmed the black group physically, economically, educationally, and in other ways. The benefits of this discrimination cannot be traced but have been widely dispersed throughout the white population. This creates a collective responsibility that justifies a broad program of reparations, the cost of which must be paid chiefly by the white population."

Ariadne Home	Affirmative Action Bibliography	Affirmative Action Home