---
abstract: "This essay is part of a symposium on affirmative action that took place at the University of Cincinnati with the distinguished legal scholar Ronald Dworkin.  I argue against affirmative action. And I discuss at length the votes of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and the dissent of Justice Clarence Thomas.  I develop the idea of idiosyncratic excellence; and I argue that diversity is a weakness insofar as it (a) an excuse for social myopia and (b)an impediment to individuals seeing beyond their differences and affirming the excellences that they witness.  The expected publication date, Univ of Cinn Law Review, is March 2004. "
altloc: []
chapter: ~
commentary: ~
commref: ~
confdates: ~
conference: ~
confloc: ~
contact_email: ~
creators_id: []
creators_name:
  - family: Thomas
    given: Laurence
    honourific: ''
    lineage: ''
date: 2003-11
date_type: published
datestamp: 2003-11-24
department: ~
dir: disk0/00/00/32/80
edit_lock_since: ~
edit_lock_until: ~
edit_lock_user: ~
editors_id: []
editors_name: []
eprint_status: archive
eprintid: 3280
fileinfo: /style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png;/3280/1/Thomas_AffAction.pdf
full_text_status: public
importid: ~
institution: ~
isbn: ~
ispublished: ~
issn: ~
item_issues_comment: []
item_issues_count: 0
item_issues_description: []
item_issues_id: []
item_issues_reported_by: []
item_issues_resolved_by: []
item_issues_status: []
item_issues_timestamp: []
item_issues_type: []
keywords: 'diversity, inferiority, idiosyncratic excellence, stigma'
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:55:24
latitude: ~
longitude: ~
metadata_visibility: show
note: ~
number: ~
pagerange: ~
pubdom: FALSE
publication: ~
publisher: ~
refereed: FALSE
referencetext: |-
  Lawrence Blum, I'm Not a Racist, But . . .: The Moral Quandry of Race (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002)
  
  Ronald Dworkin, "The Court and the University," The New York Review of Books (15 May 2003)
  
  Ronald Dworkin, "Is Affirmative Action Doomed?," New York Review of Books (5 November 1998)
  
  Thomas Nagel, "Equal Treatment and Compensatory Discrimination," Philosophy and Public Affairs 2 (1973)
  
  Laurence Thomas, "Forgiving the Unforgivable," in Eve Garrard and Geoffrey Scarre (eds.) Moral Philosophy and the Holocaust (England: Ashgate Press, 2003)
relation_type: []
relation_uri: []
reportno: ~
rev_number: 12
series: ~
source: ~
status_changed: 2007-09-12 16:49:40
subjects:
  - phil-ethics
succeeds: ~
suggestions: ~
sword_depositor: ~
sword_slug: ~
thesistype: ~
title: Equality and the Mantra of Diversity
type: preprint
userid: 3947
volume: ~
<script src="//archive-bar.soton.ac.uk/archive-bar.js"></script>