Principles of Compensation
(Ann Speaking)

 
 

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John
 
 
 
 

Look at it this way: My father went to a college that admitted very few black students. He started out as a school teacher and then he became a school principal. When he became a principal he competed against very few blacks because they were mostly excluded from the job. As a principal he had the money to send me to a private high school and the best university in the state. Today, if I apply for a job, I have all the advantages of my education. I may compete against a black applicant whose story is exactly the opposite of mine. I've never harmed that applicant; but my advantages are partly due to the injustice done to his family or to other black families. Some compensation is due to him or her for that reason.

Don't get me wrong. I believe that eventually we should build a society that is color blind on these issues. But being color blind is only fair AFTER the effects of past injustice have been eliminated.

Our original idea was that compensation should put people in the position that would be in if fair play had been the rule. But my advantages and the black applicant's disadvantages do not represent that position. They are still partly determined by past discrimination.

I'm not sure of the FORM that compensation should take; but something should be done to eliminate the impact of that discrimination.

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