Laurence Thomas: What Good Am I

question 18

Multiple Choice

Laurence Thomas: What Good Am I?
In "What Good Am I?" Laurence Thomas addresses the debate over affirmative action by asking why, given that knowledge is colorblind, the race and gender of professors should matter. What, in other words, is the benefit of a diverse professoriate? One answer is that a diverse professoriate provides role models for minority and female students. Thomas, however, rejects this answer because it is often presented in a way that suggests minority and female faculty have little to teach students from outside historically marginalized groups apart from how not to be racist and/or sexist. But even if this so-called role-model argument were innocent of such a suggestion, Thomas claims many would still object to affirmative action on the alleged grounds that affirmative action appointments are, by definition, not the best qualified applicants. After all, so the objection goes, if a job candidate were the most qualified applicant, he or she would not need any form of preferential treatment. According to Thomas, however, this objection completely ignores the existence the entrenched biases, which can persist even alongside a sincere belief in equality. In a morally perfect world free of these kinds of biases, women and minorities of superior qualifications would be hired on the basis of their merits. But that is not the kind of world we live in according to Thomas.
For Thomas, the best way to understand the benefit of a diverse faculty is in terms of intellectual affirmation, trust, and gratitude. Teaching, on Thomas's view, involves more than the mere transmission of knowledge. Crucially, it also involves providing intellectual affirmation, which is impossible in the absence of trust between student and teacher. Given that sexism and racism can make it difficult for female and minority students to develop this kind of trust with white male professors, a diverse faculty helps remove one obstacle standing in the way of some students achieving intellectual affirmation. Moreover, the mere presence of a diverse faculty can give female and minority students hope that the university is an environment where intellectual affirmation is possible for them. Finally, Thomas argues that intellectual affirmation creates gratitude, which when felt by white male students toward female and minority professors can help undermine academic "ole boy" networks that have served sexist and racist ends in the past.
-Thomas rejects the view that the ethnic and gender composition of faculty members should be made proportional to the ethnic and gender composition of society at large because:

• A) it is impossible to determine the ethnic and gender composition of society precisely.
• B) doing so would require unfair hiring practices.
• C) doing so would require removing some current faculty members.
• D) doing so would result in the hiring of less than fully qualified faculty members.

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Definitions:

Hasty Generalization

A logical fallacy where a general conclusion is drawn from a sample that is too small or atypical.

Inductive

A reasoning method that entails moving from specific observations to broader generalizations and theories.

Deductive

A logical process where a conclusion follows necessarily from the set of premises, provided the premises are true.

Hasty Generalization

A reasoning error where the conclusion is not supported by enough or impartial evidence.