The economist debates Affirmative Action (AA)

The Economist magazine is debating Affirmative Action in a Oxford Style debate format here. The two debaters, Dr. Ashwini Deshpande, of the University of Delhi, Economics Department and Lino Graglia of the University of Texas School of law, establish their position and then debate the issue in the magazine piece.

Ms. Deshpande gives an overview of when affirmative action might be neccessary and how it has benefited India and Malaysia. She talks about societies where equality exists "in the law" but not "in the facts" and how affirmative action can be used to offer the disadvantaged opportunity.

Mr. Graglia gives only a narrowly focus rebuttal rejecting race as a factor in US affirmative action. He also completely ignores any of the arguments from Ms. Deshpande.  He does not mention any other form of AA, any other country or situation.  He simply states that discrimination is wrong. And then returns his opposition to race based affirmative action.

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