ABSTRACT

The debate over affirmative action is really a debate about liberty, equality, and justice. Few in the debate would argue against the supposition that everyone in society should have complete liberty. Fewer still would argue that there should be inequality in society, although as we saw in the discussion on equality in Chapter Four, there are some detractors. We would probably find no one in the debate who would argue that society should be unjust to some individuals. However, these are the very things that are being argued in the debate over affirmative action, but since the present debate is at the shell level and the core, prior to the present effort, had not been articulated, those participating in the affirmative action debate are essentially unaware that they are debating about liberty, equality, and justice. Or at least, they are unaware of the significance of the centrality of the discourse on liberty, equality, and justice and these principle’s interconnections in their shell discourse. In the epigraph Former US President Johnson exclaimed that there was battle for civil rights. We agree that there is a battle, but it is bigger and more complicated than civil rights. By debating about affirmative action, its policies and programs, its implications, its legality, its pros and cons, its merits, its areas of application, or its demise, transformation, or continuance, the debaters are engaged in a masked battle over the interpretation, attainment, control, and experienciation of the concepts liberty, equality, and justice. What is liberty and who gets it? How do you maintain it? Can everyone in society experience liberty simultaneously? Do superordinate and subordinate groups in society strive for the same thing in their pursuit of liberty? We ask these questions about justice and equality as well. This is the debate Sniderman and his colleagues have failed to address (Sniderman, Crosby, and Howell 2000; Sniderman and Carmines 1997).