There’s a special resonance to Michael Kinsley’s arguments questioning the American with Disability Act, given that Kinsley has Parkinson’s, and that Si Newhouse probably rescinded the just-offered editorship of the New Yorker when he found out. This was almost certainly a violation of the ADA. The article, subtitled “Must we pay to hear bad pianists?”, also brings to mind the brilliant 1995 Economist article on heightism, which starts out with a multitude of facts about how much worse off short people are and then generalizes into a deep insight on bias and affirmative action:
Is there, then, no good news for short men? No: there is none. And if, having read this far, you do not believe that height discrimination is serious, you are no doubt a tall person in the late stages of denial. Or, perhaps, you cringe at the thought of yet another victim group lining up to demand redress. Surely the notion of SHRIMPs (Severely Height-Restricted Individuals of the Male Persuasion) as an oppressed social group is silly, and the idea of special protections or compensatory benefits for short men preposterous? Actually, no–unless all such group benefits are equally dubious.
In general, the kinds of discrimination worth worrying about should have two characteristics. First, bias must be pervasive and systematic. Random discrimination is mere diversity of preference, and comes out in the wash. But if a large majority of employers prefers whites, for instance, then non-whites’ options in life are sharply limited. And second, bias must be irrational: unrelated to the task at hand. If university mathematics faculties discriminate against the stupid, that may not seem fair (not everyone can master set theory); but it is sensible.
In politically correct terms, people who share an unusual characteristic that triggers pervasive and irrational aversion have a strong claim to be viewed as a vulnerable minority group. Is the discrimination against SHRIMPs, then, pervasive? Plainly so. Is it irrational? Except in a few rare cases in which height might affect job performance, obviously. Is it hurtful? Just ask any of the parents who clamor to put their little boys on growth hormones. Will it disappear of its own accord, as people become more enlightened? Be serious. Try to imagine that a century hence, when genetic engineering allows designer children, parents will queue up for shorter boys.
If affirmative action can’t be rationally applied across the continuum of attributes that might be discriminated against, the whole moral basis for using it to redress discrimination comes into question.