Biden’s Culture War Aggression – The Weekly Dish

Biden has also signaled (and by executive order, has already launched) a very sharp departure from liberalism in his approach to civil rights. The vast majority of Americans support laws that protect minorities from discrimination, so that every American can have equality of opportunity, without their own talents being held back by prejudice. But Biden s speech and executive orders come from a very different place. They explicitly replace the idea of equality in favor of what anti-liberal critical theorists call equity. They junk equality of opportunity in favor of equality of outcomes. Most people won t notice that this new concept has been introduced equity, equality, it all sounds the same but they ll soon find out the difference.

In critical theory, as James Lindsay explains, equality means that citizen A and citizen B are treated equally, while equity means adjusting shares in order to make citizen A and B equal. Here s how Biden defines equity : the consistent and systematic fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals, including individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.  

In less tortured English, equity means giving the the named identity groups a specific advantage in treatment by the federal government over other groups in order to make up for historic injustice and systemic oppression. Without equity , the argument runs, there can be no real equality of opportunity. Equity therefore comes first. Until equity is reached, equality is postponed perhaps for ever.

via andrewsullivan.substack.com

Well that’s not right.