Equity

It first appeared in the 1960's when it was called affirmative action and was targeted at government employees. In time it spread to private employers. It was an attempt to make up for past discrimination. At the time it seemed like a reasonable approach to solving some of the problems of past mistreatment of minorities but like so many programs, it took on a life of its own. About 20 years ago entry test for firemen and policemen were adjusted to accommodate minorities and more recently college entrance exams have been made less difficult. This process has entered into airline pilot and medical school testing. What started a few years back in schools has spread to law enforcement. Schools stopped expelling students for behavior problems when they discovered that Black students were disproportionately punished. In today's world career criminals are not sent to jail because it results in too many Blacks being incarcerated. The result is disruptive classrooms and street crime. It is what George Bush called the soft bigotry of low expectations and it is the result of striving for equality of outcome which is called equity. This has replaced equality of opportunity which is consider racist. The price paid for this attempt to correct past discrimination is that striving for excellence has been replace by mediocrity. Perhaps the country has made enough progress in fighting prejudice that it is time to move back to evaluating on merit instead of race.