The injustice of social justice

Caryn Lipson

March 27, 2024

Social justice — boon or bust?

The pursuit of the goals of the social justice movement reflected by the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in companies and colleges is facing increasing backlash. Frontline News, for example, reported on the recent bill put forward by Representatives Greg Murphy, a medical doctor, and Brad Weinstrup to eliminate federal funding for medical schools that enact DEI policies and programs. Murphy, concerned that students accepted to medical school for reasons other than merit may not make the best doctors, asked the question:

Imagine you are the patient and you're looking up because tomorrow you're going to have your chest cut open because you're going to have bypass. Who do you want as your doctor? Someone who is skillful or someone who got into medical school because of identity politics?

As Murphy is looking ahead at the potential consequences of DEI policies introduced in medical schools, it is imperative to ask: Will a cultural shift to social justice improve society for everyone, just for those it claims to help, or for no one at all?

You can't correct “defects of the cosmos”

To answer that question, we can look to economist, social critic, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution for Public Policy Research Thomas Sowell, whose discussion in the Harvard Club in 1999, titled “The Quest for Cosmic Justice," is as relevant today as it was then.

Sowell contrasted traditional justice with social justice, or cosmic justice as he calls it since they're trying to correct not only the inequities that they see in society, but even the ”oversights of God" or “the defects of the cosmos." Traditional justice requires everyone to be judged by the same rules and standards. Social justice means equalizing the prospects for everybody to have the same outcome.

People come from different backgrounds, varied skills and abilities, and with different opportunities and handicaps; everyone doesn't start from the same place. Traditional justice would provide them all the same opportunity even though there will be winners and losers. Social justice attempts to give those deemed handicapped a leg up to ensure that everyone can “win.”

The way up from poverty

Sowell used a personal example to demonstrate that judging everyone by the same rules and standards is the only way to lift up people from poor circumstances so that they can achieve equal standing with those who came from more affluent and educated envirnments.

That is how, as After Skool depicted in the cartoon representation of his talk below, growing up in New York City's Harlem neighborhood, the son of parents who never finished seventh grade, Sowell became a Harvard professor and was able to stand in the Harvard Club in New York City and say:

Whenever I hear the notions of fairness in education, I think back to my own education and I think, “Thank God my teachers were unfair to me.”

Self-esteem doesn't matter

Sowell described how he was essentially forced to excel by one of his teachers who never expected anything less of him than she would of students from wealthier homes:

When I was a kid growing up in Harlem one of these teachers was a lady named Miss Simon who belonged to what might be called the General Patton School of Education. I cannot even imagine that Miss Simon gave a moment's thought to my self-esteem. Every word that we misspelled in her class had to be written 50 times, not in class but as part of our homework, and there was always plenty of other homework from her and other teachers. And so you misspelled four or five words and you had quite an evening ahead of you. Very little chance of listening to the Lone Ranger. . . .

Like many of the children in Harlem at that time I came from a home where nobody had gone beyond elementary school. I still remember what a big fuss was made when I was promoted to the seventh grade because I'd gone further than anyone else. In later years when I graduated from Harvard there was no such fuss; they expected me to.

Fairness vs make-believe fairness

Circumstances beyond anyone's control did not garner Sowell preferential treatment, laying the groundwork for his success.

But fairness was never an option. There was nothing that Miss Simon or anybody else could do about the fact that we came from homes where we did not have books and magazines and were not as familiar with those words as people from other neighborhoods might have been. So that was never an option. Nothing that schools could have done would have changed that.

It would have been an irresponsible self-indulgence for them to have pretended to make things fair. If there's anything worse than unfairness it is make-believe fairness. They could, like the College Board apparently is trying to do, pretended that we knew more than we did, and that would have made them feel good. It would not have done much for us. Instead they forced us to meet standards that were a little harder for us to meet than they were for some other kids, but far more necessary for us to meet because that was the only way out of poverty.

Unequal treatment but equal results?

The opportunity Sowell had to work hard to bring himself up out of poverty is one that is being denied to many students today. Instead, those embracing DEI policies are espousing what Sowell would call “make-believe fairness,” changing the admission criteria for those students who they claim are at a disadvantage.

Sowell's concerns turned out to be well-founded, as seen in dramatic changes to medical school admissions policies as covered by Frontline News, which referenced a medical journal article which argued that DEI policies, including special considerations for enrollment, are necessary in medical schools.

With greater understanding that cognitive tests have racial biases, many medical schools have adjusted perspective to incorporate experiential and personal attributes important to professional success into the selection and recruitment process. In addition, medical schools across the country have taken action with the adoption of offices, administration, and education curricula specific to these needs.

The social justice policies do not end with admission to medical school. Even after graduation, when hospitals choose residents, DEI is at work, as described by Congressman Murphy:

A paucity of diversity in training program environments has been adversely associated with attrition and poor performance. In order for general surgery residencies to navigate the ever-diversifying group of students and attract the best talent, it is incumbent that general surgery residencies adapt and adopt deliberate recruitment strategies . . . (Emphases added.)

A decent education goes a long way

In the video clip below, Sowell argues that equal standards, without preference, will work just fine since “people can do remarkable things with a decent education” despite disadvantages.

However, Sowell stated earlier in his lecture that proponents of social justice are generally not drawn to the idea of working hard and the letting chips fall where they may. Instead, he contends, social just activists tend to want to feel that they are doing good regardless of the outcome.

. . . the vision of cosmic justice is very beneficial to the people who hold it even if it's not beneficial to those whom it's intended to benefit. And I think that's one of the reasons that there are people so reluctant to give it up because they feel wonderful.

Sowell therefore concludes that although change can occur in the absence of preferential treatment, it is unlikely to happen under the present circumstances:

These things can be done but they're not going to be done as long as third parties think that the purpose of the educational system is to make them feel good about themselves.

Watch Sowell's Harvard discussion dramatized below and/or watch the full speech as he presented it.