By Jane L. Johnson
Affirmative Action, Jewish Quotas, and Academic Central Planning

Before there were other kinds of college admissions quotas, there were Jewish quotas. Jane L. Johnson writes about the days when she was an Affirmative Action West Coast student for colleges in the East.

Affirmative Action has many well documented perverse economic outcomes. See Thomas Sowell's work (amongst others) for an interesting look at that.

I'm more curious what people think about affirmative action or other identitarian quotas from a moral perspective. Should people and organizations be allowed to discriminate on the basis of immutable characteristics?

This issue tends to pit libertarian principles against libertarian sentiments. In principle, we favor freedom of association (unlike virtually everyone else). However, as individualists most of us find the idea of that kind of discrimination abhorrent.

Personally, I have no trouble reconciling those positions. I'm free to not associate with people who engage in that kind of behavior and take my business elsewhere.