Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do

by Michael J. Sandel

Was Starrett City’s race-conscious way of allocating apartments unjust? No, not if you accept the diversity rationale for affirmative action. Racial and ethnic diversity play out differently in housing projects and college classrooms, and the goods at stake are not the same. But from the standpoint of fairness, the two cases stand or fall together. If diversity serves the common good, and if no one is discriminated against based on hatred or contempt, then racial preferences do not violate anyone’s rights. Why not? Because, following Rawls’s point about moral desert, no one deserves to be considered for an apartment or a seat in the freshman class according to his or her merits, independently defined. What counts as merit can be determined only once the housing authority or the college officials define their mission.