The Heart of the Diversity Debate
What is the best metric by which to judge equal opportunity?
This may seem like a fairly simple and innocent question, but I think it underpins a lot of conversations about diversity in the United States, and is far more complex than it seems.
Let’s start off with the easy case. Let’s say that we have two populations that don’t have any significant differences with regards to how they respond to an offered opportunity. In this case, equality of outcome is the best metric for judging equal opportunity. If both groups have equal opportunity, and both groups respond to the opportunity in the same way, then, in general, we should expect that both groups will take advantage of that opportunity just as much.
For example, if we assume that men and women respond similarly to the opportunity of higher education, then we should expect equal amounts of men and women to attend college. Simply put:
If different groups respond similarly to opportunity, then equal opportunity will result in equality of outcomes.
Here’s where things get complex — what if both groups don’t respond the same way to opportunity?
An example from Marvel’s “The Falcon and The Winter Soldier” (spoiler alert) may help to illustrate what I mean. In the TV show, Falcon, who is racially and culturally Black, is offered the opportunity to become Captain America. However, he refuses the offer, partially because of the history of the United States and viewing Captain America partially as a symbol of oppression against his racial and cultural group. Later on, a racially white man, John Walker, is offered the opportunity to become Captain America, and accepts it, partially because he does not view Captain America as a symbol of oppression against his racial and cultural group.
While fictional, this is a clear example of how people from two different groups, when given the exact same opportunity, may respond differently to the opportunity. In this case, if we tried to judge the equality of opportunity purely based on the equality of outcome, we would come to the conclusion that Falcon, because he was Black, did not have the same opportunity afforded to him as John Walker. However, this is explicitly not true. Falcon was offered the exact same opportunity as John Walker, however, he responded differently, due, in part, to the racial and cultural group he belonged to. This leads to the following conclusion:
Equality of outcome is not a good measure of equality of opportunity if different groups respond differently to opportunity.
Let’s stick with the assumption (which may be false) that different groups respond differently to opportunity, and apply this to a new scenario: the school system.
In many schooling systems, courses build off of one another, and success in previous courses or schooling environments usually leads to more success in future courses or schooling environments. For example, in the United States, a high grade point average (GPA) during high school is often required for admission to top colleges.
Let’s imagine a student whose family does not make much money, and compare them to a student whose family makes more money. We have a school with a strong support system for students, where tutoring for all students is completely free. Thus, tutoring is an opportunity that is offered to all students regardless of their background. However, students can also make money by working at a job after school hours, during the time that tutoring takes place.
It seems reasonable in this scenario that the student whose family does not make much money would choose to work the extra job in order to make more money for their family. Meanwhile, the student whose family makes more money would reasonably choose to be tutored during that time, because their family does not need more money.
Then, when we look years down the line, both students are offered the opportunity to attend college. However, tutoring has helped the student whose family makes more money, and so their GPA is higher. Thus, that student is offered the opportunity to attend elite colleges. The other student, who was not helped by tutoring, despite it being free, has a lower GPA, and therefore is not given that opportunity to attend an elite college. This leads us to the following conclusion:
If, initially, there is equality of opportunity, but groups respond differently to that initial opportunity, this can lead to a lack of equality of opportunity in the future.
Overall, the three highlighted conclusions are the purpose of this article. I honestly don’t know how to answer the question “What is the best metric by which to judge equal opportunity?” for the cases in which populations don’t respond the same way to opportunity, and I am looking for guidance on how to answer that question. If you have ideas, please let me know by writing a comment or otherwise reaching out.
Before I finish, however, I’d like to point out a few more things. The first is that I’m not making any claim about whether or not different groups actually respond differently to opportunity. I’m just saying that if it turns out that they do, equality of outcome is likely not the best measurement for equality of opportunity.
I’m also not advocating for the generalization of groups as a whole. For example, there are many students whose families struggle to get by, and yet those students decide to prioritize their education and choose to receive tutoring despite the foregone income; my analysis fails to take those students into account. However, I struggle to find ways to talk clearly and reason about group dynamics without making some broad generalizations. If you have advice on how to better handle this, I would greatly appreciate it.
Finally, my conclusions depend on how you define what an “opportunity” is. You might think that because Falcon is culturally and racially Black, offering him the “opportunity” to become Captain America is actually a completely different opportunity than offering John Walker (who is racially white) the “opportunity” to become Captain America. Thus, I believe that it is very important to clarify what you mean by “opportunity” in conversations about diversity and equality of opportunity. I think a lot of disagreements stem from a lack of clarity of what it means to be given the same “opportunity” as someone else.
Thank you for reading. As always, I look forward to hearing any thoughts you may have on this topic.
