Senator James Webb (D-VA) is out today with a Wall Street Journal editorial, provocatively entitled, "Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege", in which he calls for the end of most government-directed affirmative action programs and policies:
Forty years ago, as the United States experienced the civil rights movement, the supposed monolith of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant dominance served as the whipping post for almost every debate about power and status in America. After a full generation of such debate, WASP elites have fallen by the wayside and a plethora of government-enforced diversity policies have marginalized many white workers. The time has come to cease the false arguments and allow every American the benefit of a fair chance at the future.
http://online.wsj.com/...
Sen. Webb bases his position on two related assertions. The first is that the original purpose of affirmative action has been lost as the focus shifted towards "diversity":
Affirmative action was designed to recognize the uniquely difficult journey of African-Americans. This policy was justifiable and understandable . . . But the extrapolation of this logic to all "people of color" — especially since 1965, when new immigration laws dramatically altered the demographic makeup of the U.S. — moved affirmative action away from remediation and toward discrimination, this time against whites. It has also lessened the focus on assisting African-Americans, who despite a veneer of successful people at the very top still experience high rates of poverty, drug abuse, incarceration and family breakup.
http://online.wsj.com/...
Broadly speaking, there have been two ways to justify affirmative action: (1) to provide group compensation for past wrongs; and (2) to promote institutional diversity for its own sake. Legally, the first has traditionally required a fairly direct link between proven past discrimination and a narrowly-drawn remedy. But "diversity" as a goal does not require any proof of past wrongs, although it also doesn't generally justify the strongest of policies in response.
Sen. Webb seems to be acknowledging the validity of public policies meant to address past wrongs, but is rejecting policies that are justified only by diversity concerns.
He does so on the basis that certain white ethnic sub-groups are statistically no better off than African-Americans, and significantly worse off than many immigrants groups of color:
A recent NORC Social Survey of white adults born after World War II showed that in the years 1980-2000, only 18.4% of white Baptists and 21.8% of Irish Protestants—the principal ethnic group that settled the South—had obtained college degrees, compared to a national average of 30.1%, a Jewish average of 73.3%, and an average among those of Chinese and Indian descent of 61.9%.
http://online.wsj.com/...
A counterargument might be that diversity as a goal is justified not so much by statistical disparities in income and education, or even past discrimination, but by the needs of the institutions who are implementing those policies and of society in general to experience the benefits of having a diverse student body, or workforce.
One could also make the argument that our government has negatively impacted the lives of many of the immigrants of color that have ended up here. We used some countries (i.e. Vietnam, Korea, El Salvador, Nicaragua) for proxy wars against Communism, in other places we've had a sort of neo-colonial relationship (i.e. Philipines). Some immigrants have had to flee after supporting U.S.-backed dictators who were overthrown (i.e. Iran).
This is also a different argument than the "class-based affirmative action" that we sometimes hear about. He's not saying that affirmative action is only justified if it's for poor people, as opposed to people of color. He's saying it's only justified if it's to compensate for past wrongs done to members of the group to be benefited.
One argument that I would put in his favor: It's always been slightly perplexing to me that a white member of the ruling class in a Latin American country is entitled to the same consideration as the sons and daughters of impoverished Latino farm workers in the Central Valley. After all, they're both "Latinos/Hispanics". And this issue is more than theoretical: in my experience, the higher reaches of our educational system are full of people from wealthy families in Latin America, Africa and Asia. And that's actually a good thing; it's just that I'm not sure that they should benefit from affirmative action.
But this could also just be politics. Sen. Webb represents a state with a lot of conservative white voters. I'm sure an article like this in his file won't hurt him as he campaigns in places like Roanoke and Lynchberg for the 2012 election.