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Die Nachteile von "Affirmative Action"

Why couldn't Clarence Thomas get a job with a big-city law firm when he graduated from Yale in 1974? It's not an idle question. That "time of dashed hopes and expectations," as Thomas once described it in a speech, still leaves him bitter. His frustration resonates in the autobiography that he published last fall, "My Grandfather's Son."

Thomas blames Yale Law School -- specifically, its affirmative action program, which sought to give up to 10 percent of first-year spots to minorities -- for his difficulties securing a job as a first-year associate. Thomas has not disclosed the firms to which he applied, or how many, but he says that after applying for jobs at firms in four different cities, he was rejected everywhere.

"I'd learned the hard way that a law degree from Yale meant one thing for white graduates and another for blacks, no matter how much anyone denied it," Thomas writes in his memoir. "I'd graduated from one of America's top law schools, but racial preference had robbed my achievement of its true value."

[New York Lawyer: "Affirmative REaction"]

Ein sehr interessanter Artikel über die vielen Schattierungen gesellschaftlicher Benachteiligungen und die zahlreichen - leider unterschiedlich erfolgreichen - Versuche, Ausgleich zu schaffen.

Full post as published by jurabilis - German bLAWg from Berlin. on June 05, 2008 (boomark / email).