Thursday, April 9, 2015

The Evils of the Disparate

The federal report on Ferguson has come out and declares law enforcement in Ferguson has a "disparate impact" on blacks and is "motivated" by "discriminatory intent."
The "disparate impact" observation continues to be used as if it is prima fascia evidence of discrimination; in essence it is a statistical disproportion. More black guys are arrested, more black children are disciplined in school. But it is evident everywhere where it clearly is not discriminatory. Statistical differences in pay by gender, in representation on sports teams or the military, in engineering schools and spelling bees, in disease rates--all of these distinctions might well be statistically disproportional but the leap from the observation to cause and effect is, or should be, difficult.
But not in the world of The Plausible.

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