Following Charlottesville, an undue focus on racism

Stephen Kershnar

Racism and America

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

September 15, 2017

            Following the Charlottesville debacle, there has been a constant discussion of racism as a major cause of the problems of the black community. It is worth considering whether this is so.  

            Princeton University sociologists Devah Pager and Hana Shepherd report that Blacks (and Hispanics) see racism as handicapping them. A 2001 survey found that more than a third of blacks report they had been passed over a job or promotion because of their race. A dated poll (1997) found that roughly half of blacks reported having been discriminated against in the past month. 

            The argument against racism being the main explanation of the black-white gaps in money and well-being is that the gaps correlate with population differences in behavior and, likely, attitudes that cause the different behavior. These behavioral differences likely cause some of the differences in money and well-being. To the extent that individuals are morally responsible for such behaviors and the attitudes that cause them, the gaps result from factors for which individuals are morally responsible.

            Consider poverty. The Brookings Institution’s Ron Haskins argues that statistically if American adults do four things they have a 75% chance of joining the middle class and only a 2% chance of being poor. The four things are: graduate from high school, do not have children until you are married, wait until 21 to get married, and have a full-time job. If people are morally responsible for their actions, this is not too much to ask. Yet more than seven out of ten black children are born out of wedlock. This is also true for one out of two Hispanic children.

Haskin further points out that children in female-headed families are four or more times likely as children from married-couple families to live in poverty. Poverty is associated with a number of problematic outcomes including criminality, divorce, dropping out of school, health problems, longevity, out-of-wedlock births, poor grades, substance abuse, being a victim of violence, and, importantly, happiness.  

            Consider next saving and investment. Using 2013 numbers, a Federal Reserve study found that the average white family has twelve times the wealth of the average black family ($134,008 versus $11,184).  While Whites have roughly a third of their assets invested in financial and business assets (median ranking), blacks have less than one in ten. The gap in financial health is noticeable even if we compare white and black families who are middle aged and have advanced degrees. The same is true even if we control for age or education. The fewer assets and lesser investment suggest a behavioral difference rather than discrimination.

            One objection is that racism and individual responsibility are compatible. In the same way that the tax code can shape behavior and religion can shape attitudes without undermining responsibility, racism can shape behavior and attitudes without undermining the responsibility. As a philosophical matter, this is unclear. To the extent that external forces explain why people think and act in certain ways, it is plausible to think that they crowd out responsibility. By analogy, consider genetics. If genetics makes men disposed to be more aggressive than women, this makes them less blameworthy for aggressive behavior than women, even if it does not eliminate responsibility altogether. Childhood environmental influences are sometimes on par with genetic conditioning in that they are, at least in part, outside of people’s control.

            Pager and Shepherd argue that discrimination affects blacks’ opportunities and that it has a cumulative effect on their social and economic condition. If racism affects minorities, it does so unevenly. For example, according to the Pew Research Center, more than four-in-ten Jews and three-in-ten Hindus live in households with household incomes of more than $100,000. Jews also cash in at the high end. They are one in four of the 400 wealthiest Americans (2011 number). Asian American men are the highest earning racial group. They earn 17% more than their white counterparts. Still, this is consistent with the possibility of discrimination being blunted by social, economic, or genetic capital.

            Even if Pager and Shepherd are correct, it does not follow that the discrimination is wrong, bad, or that society should focus on it. The reason it might not be wrong or bad is that it might be rational. If certain groups have worse values or behave in a more destructive manner, there is good reason to avoid them. One study using federal government numbers found that controlling for population size, a black person was far more likely to attack a white person than vice versa. In 2013, for example, a black person was fourteen times more likely to kill a non-black person than vice versa. The concern about inner city behavior (for example, violence, downplaying school, and loud music) is frequently articulated even in the black community. It is unclear whether it is reasonable to demand people ignore purported differences even if racism caused the differences. The greater out-of-wedlock birth rate and criminality of Hispanics when compared to Asians might solely be due to racism and discrimination, but this is consistent with preferring, other things being equal, to have the latter as neighbors.  

            Even if much of discrimination were wrong or bad, it might not be the best place to focus efforts. No one seriously thinks that it is better to focus black high school girls on racism rather than making them aware of contraception (for example, the birth control shot at Planned Parenthood) or getting them up to speed in math. The left’s focus on white nationalists and discrimination and silence on broken inner city public schools, over-criminalization, mass incarceration, and single-parent families shows that it cares more about politics than improving black people’s lives.

               There is an undue focus on discrimination. It is unclear the degree to which it produces racial gaps, the extent to which it is wrong and bad, and whether it is worth the attention it receives. 

Adjunct Faculty: Sympathy and Social Justice

Stephen Kershnar

Sympathy for Adjunct Faculty

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

August 23, 2017

            Adjunct faculty are professors who do not have tenure and are not in line to get it. They can be full- or part-time. There is a powerful social-justice movement to sympathize with their plight and improve their lives by making more adjunct positions full-time.

            According to the U.S. Department of Education from 2013-2015, universities hired roughly equal numbers of adjunct and tenure-track faculty. Tenure-track faculty, however, get paid more and have greater job security. At Fredonia, for example, professors, associate professors, and assistant professors (assistants are tenure-track but not tenured) average $90,000, $68,000, and $59,000 respectively ($71,000 average for all tenure-track faculty). Full-time adjuncts average a mere $45,000 and part-time adjuncts earn $3,000-$4,000 a class. Many adjunct professors receive full medical insurance, so their total compensation package is higher.

At research universities, the difference is larger. For example, at SUNY-Buffalo, the three tenure-track ranks average $139,000, $95,000, and $83,000 respectively ($103,000 average for all tenure-track faculty). Full-time adjuncts average $64,000.

            Georgetown philosophy professor Jason Brennan caused a furor when he argued that in most cases, adjunct faculty are not owed sympathy. He gives two arguments for his conclusion. First, he argues, adjunct faculty are talented. They have lucrative alternatives to being an adjunct professor and, thus, are nothing like minimum wage workers. For example, they could go back to school and become accountants, lawyers, physicians, or teachers. Alternatively, they could go into the business world.

   

Second, Brennan argues that in most cases adjunct faculty know (and knew) that there is a glut of professors and, thus, the chance of landing a tenure-track job is not great. Sticking with being a professor after one fails to get a tenure-track job is a poor bet. Brennan draws an analogy between the average adjunct faculty and a formerly rich person who understands gambling statistics, but still bets the house in Vegas. People who pass up on good alternatives and do so knowing the odds, Brenan reasons, don’t deserve our sympathy. 

On a side note, if people getting a PhD didn’t know about the bleak market, they should have known about it. For example, the Fredonia State philosophy department received roughly 175 applications the last time it hired a tenure-track faculty, including many excellent candidates from top schools. This is not uncommon.

Brennan further argues that if the social justice program were implemented and more adjunct positions were converted into full-time positions with reasonable features, most current adjunct faculty would lose their jobs. A reasonable position might include a salary of at least $50,000, full benefits, a teaching load of three classes a semester, and no research requirement. This is because there were be less need for part-time adjuncts. On one estimate by George Mason historian Phil Magness and Brennan, two thirds of current adjuncts lose their jobs.  

Also, younger and better candidates for the tenure-track positions would likely get the lion’s share of these newly created positions squeezing out many adjuncts. This would be made worse if the higher pay were to induce higher quality candidates to enter the field or stay in it. This is similar to how gentrification changes a neighborhood’s composition. Brennan concludes that the plan to create full-time jobs with reasonable features would end up harming adjuncts because the harm from job loss would outweigh the benefit to those lucky enough to get the new positions.

One objection is that the system is unfair because current tenure-track faculty were not better than adjunct faculty, merely luckier. A related objection is that the former are not lucky, but instead favored because they come from fancier schools and benefitted from the privilege such schools bestow on their students. Even if one of these things is correct, becoming a professor is still a bad bet. The role of luck and class is hardly new and one can make himself less vulnerable to them if he chooses a field, such as accounting, medicine, or teaching that is less flooded. Also, the proposed remedy (more full-time jobs) would likely worsen the lives of current adjuncts for the reason mentioned above.  

Magness and Brennan estimate the cost of more full-time jobs at $15-$50 billion. Consider, for example, the Service Employee’s International Union’s call for adjuncts to be paid $15,000 per class (including benefits). It is not clear, they argue, that as a matter of justice the money is better spent on adjuncts rather than reducing tuition or providing scholarships to poor students. This is especially true if, as I suspect, many adjunct faculty do not come from the worse conditions than poor students.  

A second objection is that adjunct faculty really love their field and should be able to make a dignified living doing what they love, especially given that they do it well. However, merely because someone loves what he does and does it well does not result in anyone else having a duty to pay him to do it, let alone pay him a respectable wage. Plenty of actors love acting and are damn good at it. Yet, there simply are not enough customer dollars for many to make a living as an actor. Rather, actors often supplement their acting with other jobs (for example, waiter, taxi driver, and bartender) while trying to catch a break. This is neither unfair nor unjust. The same is true for adjuncts.   

A third objection is that the schools have had such an explosion in administration and staff that there is plenty of money to pay adjuncts more if only the schools didn’t have armies of associate directors, directors, associate deans, deans, vice presidents, and various staffers who suck up much of a university’s payroll (consider diversity officers, legislative liaisons, and the like). This objection might be an argument for cutting out layers of fat from the university, but it is hard to see why the money saved should go to adjuncts rather than to reducing skyrocketing costs of a university education or the spigot of money from taxpayers to universities.