Equity Policies And Guaranteed Outcomes
Susan Rice – Domestic Policy Adviser to President Joe Biden
photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Domestic policy adviser Susan Rice detailed Tuesday (1-26-2021), President Joe Biden’s attempt to fight systemic racism by highlighting “equity” policies advanced by the administration.
She began her speech with the following statement: “For too many American families, systemic racism and inequality in our economy, laws, and institutions still put the American dream far out of reach,” Rice said at the White House press briefing.
I both listened to her speech and read it several times. If you would like to read it for yourself it is available at: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/01/26/susan-rice-trumpets-equity-policies-under-joe-biden-fight-systemic-racism/
My reaction to what she had to say was in general wanting to agree with her on the goals she outlined. I think virtually all of us want to see equity in our system to offer opportunity to every citizen regardless of race, gender, religious beliefs, etc. etc. etc.
“Advancing equity is everybody’s job,” she said, noting that each federal government agency needed to place equity at the “core of their public engagement.” Ms. Rice said in her statement.
Excuse me, but I believe Federal, as well as State and other public agencies already have this mandate in place.
One area I have questions on in her speech is when she speaks of equity: how is she defining it? I did some research and see various definitions. Some definitions found relative parity between equality and equity. I am in full agreement with that definition. However, in one place I found the following definition:
As the New Discourses site points out, “Where equality means that citizen A and citizen B are treated equally, equity means “adjusting shares in order to make citizens A and B equal.”
Let that sink in for a while and think about what is implied here. I find this definition very troubling because every time government somewhere tries to impose “equity” as defined as “equal outcomes” the results are invariably disastrous for the average worker and citizen.
the following is a little story I shared in an earlier article about a well intentioned professor with a plan to provide equal, guaranteed outcomes to members of the class he was teaching:
“A group of students go to college. Some students work hard, study diligently and get all A’s & B’s. Other students party, skip classes, do not study, attend marches and protests for “causes” and get D’s & F’s. Their Professor says that in order to be “fair” to all students he has decided to “tax” the hard working students A’s & B’s and share those grades with the lazy students who got the D’s & F’s. In this way all students can average out at a “C” grade. Some of the students are going to love this idea and others will likely hate it. Can you guess which ones will love it?”
I believe our Federal, State and Local Laws already require “equity” in opportunity, hiring, salaries and treatment of employees. In addition we have laws that make it illegal to discriminate in housing etc. etc.
In my experience I have found employers invariably want employees who show up for work on time, are trained, productive, customer oriented, and want to do everything they can to make the employers business successful. In the process all employees succeed as well. The employer really does not care what the race, gender etc. of the employee is.
Unstated, but to me implied in Ms. Rice’s statement is an implication that our government may be planning on trying to institute laws for “guaranteed outcomes” for citizens. Pardon me, but no matter how well intentioned such a goal might be there is simply no way to guarantee outcomes. If I were to bring any group of five individuals together; you can pick the races, genders or whatever diversity of your choice, and I gave each of them 1 million dollars with the only criteria that they report back to me in one year with what their new found wealth had done for them, does anybody believe they would all have the same story to tell?
Our government should and must guarantee equal opportunity to everyone – it cannot guarantee outcomes.
In our form of Democracy the most we can do, and I want to make sure we do, is to provide equal opportunity to everyone, and I mean everyone without regard to race, gender, background, or who they are related to, all deserve the same opportunity to succeed. We cannot, and should not try, to guarantee equal outcomes.
Every time government tries to impose artificial equal outcomes for its citizens the result is always the same. (1) The super rich (Jeff Bezos, George Soros etc.) who are above the law. (2) An Oligarchy (government by the privileged political ruling class) also above the law. And (3) The rest of the citizenry are given “equity”, that is all become equally poor and live in fear of the law (Cuba, Venezuela, the Soviet Union etc.).
Bob Bandy – January 2021
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