Equity and Equality
“Equality” and “Equity” seem to weigh about the same. At a casual glance they seem to imply a similar positive meaning.
When the word “equity” first began to appear with prominence in newspapers and television and the internet, I pretty much ignored it. I thought to myself, “The approach to the world implied by the Left’s use of this word is too weak to stand close inspection.”
Because of its obvious weaknesses, it seemed harmless, but because of its massive repetition by the Left, I began to examine it more closely.
“Equity” according to a time honored definition means: “the quality of being fair and impartial.”
“Equality” is defined in standard dictionaries as: “the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities.”
Each word seems to have positive qualities---not so fast, folks. When filtered through a liberal’s mind, the meaning of equity is quite different.
From the beginning of our country, we cried out for equality for our people---an equal opportunity to be successful in life. When we could not get this opportunity from the British, we revolted and formed our own country which through our Constitution awarded equality to our citizens.
Of course, this equality did not extend to slaves or native Americans until a hundred and fifty years ago. It seems to me, that a hundred and fifty years is adequate time to share this privilege for it to have become a well accepted principle, thought, and practice.
The question of “equality” or “equity” allows you to determine who you are. Choose carefully.
I know who I am: I wish no more than “equality,” a field upon which I have an equal opportunity. The field has been there for me from my beginning, but I have had to often fight for it. That goes for all of us including descendents of slaves and native Americans.
I have never objected to the need to fight for equality. It is part of who we are as a people…I thought.
Now I am being told that folks don’t want “equality”: they want “equity”---an equal outcome with the folks who are more intelligent or harder working or more determined, or better educated than they may be.
When filtered through the minds of Liberals, “equity’s” meaning is quite different: it means equal outcomes.
Wow.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the withholding of the National Merit Scholarship results in many schools in Virginia. Why on earth would this be. “Well, they weren’t fair.” To whom? The folks who did not do well on the exam.
When I was in high school, I recall taking the National Merit Scholarship---my results were worse than terrible. I never thought to question its fairness. I, instead, said to myelf, “You’re a dumbass and you must work harder to overcome this status.”
In our public schools, the cry has been for equality of opportunity for all young people. We built new schools. We financed out the wazoo our schools…and we achieved equality of opportunity within our schools.
Did we achieve “equity”? No, of course not.
There are other examples of folks trying to get an unfair leg up on education. Perhaps you recall the wealthy parents who paid big bucks to get their kids into prestigious schools usually through unethical sports coaches who awarded their kids undeserved scholarships. Or do you recall that here in Texas, after the state legislature restricted entry into the University of Texas to the top ten percent of high school graduates, a great outcry went up from graduates of UT who wanted their dummy kids to be accepted at “The University” so that their kids could have the same experiences they did at UT. The law was changed to include the top 15%.
Wanting equal outcomes for folks is an interesting but impractical and destructive approach to our world.
Some schools are attempting to dumb down their curriculums---example, introducing feelings to math classes---to allow less capable students to elevate their scores.
What will be the results of all this equity business? Well, it certainly won’t put us ahead of the Chinese or any other nation in the world. Hell, it won’t even help us rise to the level of dumbass first class.
Oh, by the way, I wonder how equity will work out for our baseball, football, and basketball teams---just wondering. Equal results for these boys and girls seems almost impossible. As for soccer, who cares!
enough